It's a Photo Shoot! (*Aye*)

I went to Publix yesterday and had a full on photo shoot in their bakery. I wish I could have abducted their dummy cakes and gone to a real studio but I'm sure I would have gotten arrested or something.  I took most of these photos on *womp womp* my iphone which surprisingly took much better pics than my digital camera.   Photoshop will have to work wonders.

Luckily I contacted Elece (Smooches owner) and she's making two cakes this weekend --one for a birthday and one for a baby shower-- so I'll be able to take some photos of actual work and thus the ads will be a bit more authentic.  She is actually capable of the caliber of work shown in the photos but having her own stuff featured would be super.  

Happy Birthday Stephanie, whoever you are.

Bakery Ads

Here are a cool series of Ads I found from Delicato Bakery.

And another less girly one I found from Butch Bakery

What I have so far

I probably won't be in class today because I'll be on a manhunt, armed with a camera trying to take pictures of wedding and birthday cakes but here is what I have accomplished in the way of ad set-up, typography, color, etc. I do plan on spicing up the background and giving it some kind of depth and texture. But I think I'm gonna have to wait until I get the photos first.

The gray boxes are where the cakes are supposed to go.  The text below the headline reads: 

Still trying to figure out where to put all of my information as far as what side to align it on. What do you think?

Making Headway

Okay, so I finally got the wording down for what I wanted to do for my blogs.  I reached out to my twitter folks and did a "survey" on phrases that have to do w/ cake and baking, etc. they helped me to come up with the following phrases:

-I love you like a fat kid loves cake
-Let them eat cake
-Have your cake and eat it too
-The icing on the cake
-Sugar, spice and everything nice (which doesn't necessarily apply to cake but could)

I also decided to include a Pie in the mix (because the company I'm doing makes great homemade pies)and from there came up with the phrase "It's easy as pie".

So I chose the three phrases "Let them eat cake", "Have your cake and eat it too", and "It's easy as pie" to be coupled with questions that prompt for whatever particular confection is being advertised.

For instance a sample ad will read like this:

(insert wedding cake photo here)

Getting Married?

Have your cake and eat it too

(insert copy text here)

All of the other ads will follow suit with their own indiviual photos.  My problem now is trying to find someone who has sample cakes for me to take photos of.  I think illustrations won't do the ad justice.  If i can't find actual full scale cakes I might have to find representations of them or some sort of symbolism like a cake topper for the wedding cake or a slice of pie. We shall see.

Ad inspiration

So I think I finally have down what I want to do for my ads.  I want to couple memorable moments or moments that you associate eating cake or other confections with slogans or phrases that will help to push the particular food being pictured.

For instance, for a photo like this I would add the phrase: "Sugar, spice and everything nice."

Haven't quite figured out if I want to do hand drawn illustrations or try and take photos. I'll figure it out soon. 

Final Stationery Board, Business Card and Logo

Just final copies of everything...for the record I guess.

*inside of the envelope is pink

*Lightbulb*

Was just sitting here and this came to me for a tagline

"Grandma's class with a little bit of sass"

I thought about this because the owner Smooches Sweets prides herself on being a chef that creates items that are similar to things "your grandma used to make" but she's still modern and innovative enough to create new things and put her own twist on things and make new treats for her customers per their request.

Yes? No? Maybe?

Cool Ads

As soon as I return to my humble abode I'll post my final stationery boards but for now here are some ads I thought were cool.  I chose them because of how well they execute the same message but show completely different images (as ads are supposed to).

Loooved the illustration on these. So intricate.

I'm a fan of Dali's  work so I thought these were super cool. Really ties into the company message. 

Last semester in 3000 I struggled with tying a central theme together acorss three ads so I really want to make sure I do a good job of that this time around. I'm brainstorming on things that bakeshops encounter all the time, whether it be comical or professional and colors/characters or can carry over from frame to frame. Guess I need to start sketching.

Envelope Board

Here are my envelopes on what I believe will be my final envelope board.  I think might try to do a real life shot, but it just depends on how well the actual production/print of this goes. We shall see. 

Business Card Dilemma

Now that I have this cool trendy pink line on my letterheads and envelope, does my business card need it too? Aaaaaah! Decisions, decisions!

This

or this....

Using the same back....

Final Letterhead Updates (Feedback Please)

Okay here are the final 3 options for my letter heads and I need feed back.  Stan helped me to come up with a more clean version of just doing a simple line decor at the bottom.  And it works. I jut have to decide which one I want. I suppose whichever one is more conducive to the envelope and business card.

Finally! Letterheads!

After a week I finally moved onto letterheads! Yay me! Unfortunately neither Stan nor Katia got a chance to come around to me today *womp womp* but I get by with a little help from my friends.  Morgan came by and helped me move a couple things around and I like the improvements I made. I really wanted the Letterheads to flow seamlessly to the business card without being too matchy-matchy and I think so far it's being accomplished.

 I only REALLY like 2 of them. One is a complete dud I was experimenting on and the other is just an option that can be improved on.

What do you think?

This one while it stand alone I'm actually thinking could be used as a second sheet to the one below which I actually like the most out of all four. 

 

The one above is okay. Not as strong as the first two I feel.  The one below I was purely experimenting with livepaint and my swirls.  It looks I went to candy land instead of Smooches Sweets. Clearly the dud. So not to worry about that one. 

Possible Ideas for Ad Taglines/Phrases

So the even though our stationery is still in progress I have been thinking about possible tag lines to incorporate into my ads and whenever I am struck with inspiration I have to write things down (or type in this instance).  I think I want to have different scenarios where you would compare pastries or cakes to a kiss or "smooches".  Possible phrases and tag lines that came to mind were:

"Kissably Sweet"
"The only thing sweeter are Grandma's kisses"
"Sweeter than a kiss"
(for a wedding) "The only thing sweeter than the cake is the kiss"

I"m trying to develop this to where Smooches is so good nothing can compare to it aside from what is going at the actual event itself.

Perhaps "Cakes, chocolate treats and other good eats."

Eh, iono. It's all soooo cheesy. I'm still working on it.

Business Card Updates

Here are the working business cards I have. The difference being one of them has her phone number on it and the other one doesn't.  I finally perfected my little swirl design so I'm happy with that.  As far is the back is concerned I'm trying to decide whether or not to include the website for the company or not and how big it should be. 

Smooches Business Card first Draft

Here is a shot of the first draft of my business card.  I want to use bright colors with a simple neat design that won't over power the logo and information.  

I talked with Stan about switching around some of the fonts and moving around/adding some information.  Also, the decorative pattern in the vertical green square above was inspired by the icing swirl below.  I want to create my own type of pattern similar to this one and incorporate it along the bottom of the card like the card .....

.....here.  It'll be like positioned just like this and in the same color, but my design.  I'm going to try to find a way to use is in my letter head or envelope. probably as trim. Maybe, maybe not. We'll see.

More Stationery Examples

I will be the first to admit that I really took advantage of this break to take a literal break. However I did spend a lot of my spare time actually thinking about my stationery designs and allowing my mind to be somewhat of a "melting pot" for ideas; I'd throw random things in there and allow them to simmer and see how they turned out on paper when I had time to write them down.  I did more research and googling and here some images of the creative look I'm going for. Now all I need to do is get it to manifest on paper.  I did get a chance to actually do a lil draft of a business card. It's not completely to my liking yet but I'll post it later on today.

I thought this one was cool because of the CD. It reminded me of the stickers that I wanted to try and add into my stationery set.

 I like the idea of the watermark design that had been used in the background on the stationery set above and how it is also a part of the original logo. 

In the set below, I like how the design on the second sheet is playfully and professionally incorporated throughout the stationery yet doesn't overpower it.

Each of these has a logo with it's own image incorporated into it. Similar to my logo and my cupacke/chef hat, especially on the one directly above. I like how the individual image has been used professionally in one aspect of the stationey and then playfully on another with supporting designs to help it out. 

I also played around with the idea of embossing. This example is really elegant and pretty.