Evolution of an Ad

Posted by rjdesign | Filed under Treatments



People don’t realize the planning and detail required to create a print-ready ad for a new product, so I thought I’d walk you through a distilled version of the (cue Charlton Heston’s voice)… “Evolution of an Ad.” click on any image or here for the proof series

Let’s use the new Keeley Phaser pedal. (keep your camera in the bag, it’s not time to shoot yet) To start, I spent some time getting familar by playing it and examining it’s physical characteristics, followed by a little background at Keeley’s website, then I scoured a couple forums – requisite homework. Next, I consulted with Robert Keeley, to get his direction and deadline.

With camera still in bag, – I now needed mechanicals: color, black-n-white or both, which publications, what insertion sizes – 1/2, 1/4, full-page, other)? These variables impact the composition, perspective and post processing decisions throughout the remainder of the project.

With mechanicals sorted, we’re now at the most critical portion of the project – to develop a creative concept.

At this point, I may enlist other creative types to assist in generating some headlines and body copy. Meanwhile, to get concept-to-paper, I used a Wacom Tablet® to sketch out some roughs, and greek-in (lorem ipsum dolor) copy and headline. Everything is FPO (for position only) – where’s camera? – yep, still in the bag.

note: visually “wowing” the client without working inside the creative concept does not cut it, the images should be composed to accommodate headline, copy, and ID placement. This can be why a really cool image doesn’t work, or when a more pedestrian looking shot may work perfectly.


I created some setups, struck lights, positioned the product, performed a bunch-o-tweaks, employed a sturdy tripod and with camera now out of the bag, started snapping away. After I shot a series of one setup, (50 frames is typical while constantly tweaking the setup to get 5 or 6 “candidates.”) I downloaded and made editing decisions in Lightroom® with the Wacom® mockup open onscreen for reference.

note: some important and respected person said “there is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.” –Ansel Adams. I’d like to modify his comment to read, “a perfect image for a fuzzy concept yields crap” – how’s that?

From Lightroom®, candidates are opened in Photoshop® and optimize to meet the mechanical criteria established earlier. Occasionally, I composite or add elements to an image for effect, but, I prefer to shoot as close to final output as possible – many people will take the “fix it in Photoshop” approach, although this is clearly not optimal.

By now it’s obvious what worked – and what didn’t, as four treatments became pdf proofs (Adobes portable document file) submitted to my client. A final round of edits resulted in a signed-off series of print-ready ads.


Being condensed, I’ve omitted most technical mumbo jumbo: targeted print colorspace, resolution, dot-gains, pre-flighting and the like. I simply wanted to share the creative portion of the process with you – what appears to be easy, typically is not, what appears to make obvious sense – is the result of concepting, planning and execution.

“Hey Emeril,  killer meal, what brand of pans you use? -R-

Permalink | January 25th, 2010

4 Responses to “Evolution of an Ad“

  1. Greg V replies:
    January 28th, 2010 at 12:15 AM

    Awesome Rick! Love the background to a final ad release and completely understand how much effort and time it takes to make something look so simple and easy. Great work!

    Greg V.

  2. rjdesign replies:
    January 28th, 2010 at 9:36 AM

    Greg V: Thank-you. Guitar playing and photography & design, many similarities eh?

    To anyone interested in viewing an absolutely stellar example of how musical video demonstrations should be done, check Greg V’s work here…
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMwhTqv8bL0

    And website here… http://www.gregv.us/

  3. SAC replies:
    January 28th, 2010 at 6:15 PM

    Blah, Blah, Blah,
    When one is bitterly sarcastic you can typically find a Creative depth, knowledge and intelligence… Funny sound like you… I liked the evolution to the end result…
    Great work…

  4. oscar johnson Very interesting if you want to know the details of an ad but if you only care for the results, this wastes my time. What it takes you to get me what i want is your problem and solution replies:
    February 2nd, 2010 at 2:50 PM

    Very interesting if you want all the details of coming up with a good ad, but if all i want is the good ad, and that is my position. then all of this information is a waste of my time and is your problem and solution. As long as YOU know all this and come up with good ads, you get the work.