Starting
the Unit: Shooting Beauty
Using the skills and techniques that we were taught in the
previous semester we have been given the task to research into images relating
to an inspirational word that is given to us. ‘Fill’ was my inspirational word
given to me and with this I will have to think deeply and out of the box to
eventually create a an advertisement with a chosen brand inspired by this word.
The first task given to us is to create our own ‘Pinterest’ board based on our
word (fill). To start out on my ideas I decided to mind-map some ideas of the
first things that popped into my head when thinking of the word ‘Fill’. I did
struggle with this word at first as I was really unsure of what I could
eventually create with such a simple word.
Therefore after researching on ‘Pinterest’
and collecting many images for my board, I began to come up with some ideas. As
I wanted to relate it to beauty I found ideas such as filling in parts of the
face e.g. like filling in your eyebrows as this is a very popular trend at the moment,
I also looked into filling in lips and how that big lips are also a big trend.
I wanted to then expand on this so I thought that the action of filling
something up can equal to being full, relating to food. Therefore I researched
into aspects of food related pictures that were combined with make-up brand and
with lips and eyebrows (which are on my board). The images that I found where
mainly sweet based foods that represented the colours that were worn on the
lips which I really liked and felt that they really represented a very positive, fun and
vibrant feel to the picture. By having this kind of mood I would believe when creating an advert would really catch the public eye because of the bright colour and the appeal for sweet foods. (For Example)
On the other hand, instead of going towards the bright colours and 'sweet' mood I found images that were to the theme of 'Fill' while they were a bit more sexy and seductive. I really like using lips as my main features and the product I may sell and the image below from 'Pinterest' really inspires me. Even though this image is very seductive and interesting I really want the main focus to be on the lips as its would be the main selling criteria of the poster I would make all the image black and white whilst having the lips a bright vibrant colour. Therefore again like the sugar picture this would make the picture and advert stand out to the public as one bold colour would pop out against a black and white background. I hope to develop on these and ideas and maybe use on of them as a main concept for my advert at the end of this project.
In a continue to this development of my ideas on my blog for my advert I will be creating an overall main mood board of my favourite ideas. The mood board will include the font of text that I may want to use, colour, mood, theme etc and this will be presented to give a better understanding of what could be develop from it.
Mood Board:
To continue the research on my inspirational word 'Fill' I have created a mood board to help me develop my ideas for my advert and to represent in reference images the kind of photo-shoot I would like to eventually produce. Previously in this blog I have explained two ideas that I may have wanted to produce in the future; one being bright and bold colours with a sweet theme and the other sexy and seductive. However, by looking through all the reference images that I have collected through 'Pineterest' I really love both of these themes and wanted to combined these together. The reference images shown in my mood board show mainly lips which I wanted to be the main focus of my advert as I believe that the word 'fill' can represent this well, with a make-up item such as lipstick. Secondly, to continue my word theme I wanted to use food as a main theme as fill can mean filling something up equaling it to be full which I related to food (as I have explained above), I believe by using sweets this would be one of the best foods to use as it would be the most indulging and eye catching food in the public eye. As well as choosing sweets they are mainly brightly coloured making this always an eye catching item. Shown in one of the images below (black and white image with purple lolly) I think a lolly-pop would be the best sweet to use as this could relate to my seductive theme as it can be a phallic item. Also I really love the contrast between the black and white against the purple lolly making the lips standout, therefore making me consider this as an idea for my photo-shoot. For the angle/position of my shoot I am unsure whether to have head shots or extreme close-up images of lips which is why I have shown an array of images but in future plans I hope to practice both types of shoots to see which one I believe would be better. In the black picture saying the words 'Moon, Free typeface' I would like to use a font type like this as the slightly spread out words looks very professional and again relates to my word 'Fill' as the words are very spread out, it would fill a lot of room on an advertisement. Another idea involved in this mood board is the main feature of the seductive sense while still including my word 'Fill'. Using inspiration from the image with the girl with smoke in her mouth, I may like to produce something similar. This image is very eye catching as its very different to anything normally seen in beauty adverts and I may want to incorporate this idea into the sweet theme also. For example maybe having the lips the same colour as sprinkles (on the bottom lip) while having smoke foam out of her mouth with a black and white background making the main focus pop out of the picture. Overall, I am pleased with my development of ideas but I would like to start practicing photo shoots and play around with my ideas to see what kind of themes works best for me and best represents my inspirational word. Through this I would show even more development and I hope to continue this as to eventually come up with the best ideas that would theoretically be used to sell a beauty product.
Critical Review:
Continuing this blog, I have had my ideas for this unit review and criticism to help me improve on my ideas and my structure of work. To help me with this I was given written criticism which had main points like;
- Have gone away from concept of word and concentrated on facial features without having more original ideas that relate to the word.
- To many lip pictures and need to focus on other aspects and general pictures.
- Needed to fined more appropriate typography that represented my word.
- To make another mood board relating more to my word 'fill' and concentrate on the beauty aspect later on as the internal images should inspire me for the beauty.
To highlight the main points within my work I have realized that when planning ideas I have rushed to far ahead to the main concept of just pure make-up without concentrating on the original word 'fill'. Therefore, I have decided to back track on my planning and have gone more in depth to my research about this project while also keeping some of my original ideas. I was tolled that I really needed to think about my word 'Fill' and really think about what relates to my word, some firsts thoughts about this word where; objects filled with things, paint, being full, food, sweets, over filling things etc. To continue this project development I have taken a step back and created more mood boards based on different themes of my word to help me develop my ideas.
Original Word Ideas:
As I was informed to take a step back on my ideas and show development in my research I went straight back to the basics of my word 'Fill'. As my word is very broad I needed to narrow it down but my first thoughts were to research objects/things that fill in thing or fill them up for example. Therefore in this mood board I have created I have picked my favourite images that I have collected together that all have different meanings and displayed them. Some of my images e.g. the kiwi image was really interesting as it uses the idea of negative space to create in a sense a 'filled' space. Other images are more obvious e.g. the drink bottle filled up or food (donuts) but on the other hand I did find more interesting images e.g. drawing within objects (shells), collages, pop-up books, replacing parts of images with other images, throwing of paint etc. Taking from this inspiration I really love the concept of paint and this being incorporated into my ideas as it forms interesting textures and of course colours which I believe could make a beautiful aspect for my advert.
Textures:
Following my idea of using paints from my original 'New' mood board I really wanted to studied further into this concept as I think it really would work well as a concept for my word/advert. Therefore I thought it would be appropriate to research into the kinds of textures that could be achieved from paint and how this could inspire me in my designs. As paint can be poured, thrown and dripped I believe it has an endless amounts of opportunities that I can create for concepts. Shown in this mood board I have shown lots of different examples that it can be used that I found in my research like; how paint can ripple on the skin, it looks beautiful dripping off objects due to its textures and colours, the boldness of its colours, patterns it creates within different liquids or object etc.
Inspirations in Fashion and Runways:
As I had research and found the kinds of textures and more ideas that I wanted for my advert I wanted to gain some more inspiration from the world of 'Fashion' and see what had already had been produced that may inspire me for more ideas. Therefore, as I wanted bold colours as a main concept due to the idea of paint I looked into bold blocks of colour. I found these images of bold colours in clothing but even though these images are the quite opposite in the fact that they have the use of straight lines and consist of being neat and this is very different from dripping paint I believe these two elements can blend together. As to go back to the main concept of the word 'fill' I believe that using blocks of colour represent filled in areas but also the dripping concept can represent something un-filling, showing two opposites together.
Inspiration Through Make-up:
Gaining the ideas of filling up the face with neat colours in block forms and dripping paint representing, un- filling I further researched into this idea. I found lots of different kinds of images that I found very inspirational and I was unsure of which ones where my favourite but overall I would like to take looks like this with ones that are dripping and combined them together to create a double meaning concept. I will create face and hair charts to come up with many ideas and test them out to find out which ideas work.
Font Ideas:
In other ideas and to improve on my original mood board it was stated that my ideas of font where not entirely clear when presenting. I did research fonts that said the word 'Fill' but I did not find any that I felt would suit my concept for my advert therefore by using power-point and its fonts I tested out different fonts I thought may suit it best. I wanted font that would represent my word best therefore I wanted font that was quite far apart from each other as it would 'fill' up a lot of room on a page while also looking very professional and suit my concept. From my mood board the top font is my favourite as I believe this best fits my ideas just explained.
Continuing the Concept:
To follow up these ideas I will take all my points from each of my sections and hopefully from more feed back I can create a perfect concept for this advert. I will do this by now planning out face charts and hair charts that best suit my word and pre-practice them to see which ideas work and which don't. As well as this I will next research into my given brand 'M.A.C' and find out its style, colours, fonts and background to make my idea fit into my chosen word and brand.
