Collaborative // GAP: Final campaign

Shopfront display

text on the window reads '#DressNormal this term.'

Alex created this minimal poster, which we all agreed was appropriate and representative of Gap.

However, we seemed to gradually steer away from the original idea of a busy composition of shapes overlapping each other, which I think we should have used more. Saying that, this composition is effective too, as sometimes less is more. The white space is quite captivating paired with the simple imagery.

Flyers

I came up with the idea to design small flyers that would be handed out to students at fresher fairs or on the highstreets. Fresher fairs would be a highly effective way to communicate Gap to a student audience, as students do actually pay attention to things they get handed in these places, as its an exciting time for first years and they aren't in a situation where handouts are a chore.

I used enlarged shapes from our original composition of shapes and segments, so that they stand out clearly on a small leaflet. The straightforwardness and simplicity grabs attention quickly. I made sure to use an appropriate balance of colours and make sure the vibrant pink was always present, which is a colour that is youthful and bold.

Mockups

Bus advertisement, Magazine/newspaper advertisement, Student poster advertisement

Alex and me worked on these mockups. We decided to go beyond the brief and create bus and magazine advertisements because we wanted to make it seem as realistic as possible, and to illustrate how this campaign could work in the real world.
It also gave us the opportunity to design in different formats that we haven't explored before... designing for the side of a bus is a challenge but something that is worth experimenting with.

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As I group, we listened to each others ideas and no one took full charge so I felt quite equal to others in the project. However, by having a leader in the group we could have been more efficient and created stronger work.

One of our downfalls was that as a group we weren't very inspired by the project - as I read more about it and started to research it, it became more unappealing and dull, and Alex and Johnny felt the same. This was mostly due to quite strict guidelines on the YCN brief, such as Helvetica being the only font allowed and then going on to learn more about their 'Dress Normal' campaign, which isn't very imaginative. By this time, we had already agreed on designing for Gap, so we powered through and came up with an outcome that is clear and communicative - something that fits in pretty well with Gap.

I felt quite trapped by Helvetica, as its quite often considered an invisible font - it is so normal and readable that it doesn't have any personality in a lot of situations. Typography is a massive part of any graphic design so the way its used can be very creative and communicative.

This put pressure on us to create imagery that got the message of '25% off' across - a concept we struggled with at first, because Gap is a very simple and clean brand. This meant that there were a lot of boundaries to be aware of when designing for students: boundaries that don't exist in other stores, such as River Island or Topshop.