Friday, January 15, 2010

~ An Ad Remake ~

In our next assignment, we were asked to find a printed advertisement and we have to remake it using computer software.

Do not get confused, this image below is the verdict of my experiment:



What do you think? Well, this is not exactly similar to the original advertisement, but I assure you that the message is all there. Isn't that what matters most? :)

So this is how it is done.

The first thing I did was, find an advertisement that I can remake using computer applications. After searching and considering, I picked the ‘Jingle Nano Rocks’ which is an ad of Apple’s newly iPod nano that now comes with a video camera. So before I started, I looked up for all pictures necessary for the task, specifically iPod nano, my main subject as well as other logos of its features, from the internet.

The multicolor collection of the latest iPod nano from Apple.



Some logos I searched using Google Image Search.



To start the remaking process, I chose Microsoft Publisher 2007 as a tool of designing my advertisement.



Using WordArt, I made the title ‘Jingle Nano Rocks’ (it’s the holiday season – the Christmas jingle and all…) aligned next to the main focus image, a pink iPod as shown.



Then using text boxes, I typed out all the information necessary for this promotion.



After the words and images are ready I arranged them until how it turned out now as the verdict (the first image). The last thing I edited was the background which I looked for the one that matched the main iPod nano image.

The ribbon background.



Talking about images, most all of them were edited in the Publisher using its tool called ‘magic eraser’. I used it to make the background of that image invisible and give it a little neat touch which is nicer to look at. Besides, I also used Windows Photo Gallery to crop picture. For example:

From...



To...



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My source of the advertisement is the Malaysian edition of CLEO Magazine which is an English magazine that lays out issues on women, motivation, relationship, jobs, fashion, lifestyle and more. It is indeed a good leisure read.



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Since I edited my advertisement with Microsoft Publisher 2007, I saved it in two formats, the Jpeg format to save it as an image and the publisher document format so that I can edit it if I needed to afterwards.

The Jpeg format.

- This format saves the document as an image and it is uneditable.



The Publisher files format.

- This format saves the file as a publisher file where you can edit and rearrange the design when necessary later.



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I typed all the details in the advertisement in two ways; using the text box and the word art. The text box is used when I needed to type a long text meanwhile the word art is used when I typed the title for the advertisement and the sub-titles or certain features it wanted to highlight. After that I changed them according to suitable sizes and fonts.

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Did I use any help tools?

• Spell check : Yes, because in Microsoft Office program it is set automatically to check spelling. The red underlining indicates wrong-spelled words.

• Grammar check : Yes, again the grammar is checked automatically.

• Graphic enhancement : I used some image formatting tools featured in Microsoft Powerpoint, but then I will copy it into Microsoft Publisher of which I was using. Then in the Publisher, I edited the unwanted background of some images using ‘magic eraser’ tool. I also used Windows Photo Gallery and Paint to crop pictures.

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While doing this assignment, I asked for some friends' opinion mostly about the suitable graphics that could replace the original advertisement. Thanks for the advice! ;)

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After this assignment is done, I realize that I took quite some time to finish it because I tried so hard to imitate the real look of the advertisement. However I thought it is the message that is the most crucial part. Therefore, I practically had just designed a new advertisement!

So I would personally rate my designing skill as the average 5 and the same rating for my typing skill. There's so much more to improve and I am definitely going to enjoy trying to.