Brainstorm as many ideas as necessary to come up with the 3 best thumbnails for the Hungry Man (brand).
You can use a marker and an 8.5″ x 11″ sheet of paper per ad (with a rule around) and follow the guidelines for creating roughs.
Guidelines:
- Get out your paper again (you may prefer using single sheets of 8 1/2 x 11-inch paper) as well as a pencil, eraser, and marker.
- Use one sheet per idea. Some art directors like to draw borders around the edges of the paper. This border indicates the area in which the ad will live. Sometimes this helps you have borders to work within. Also, you will start to get an idea, proportionately, of where things are going to be placed.
- If you are planning to work on a double-page spread campaign (a horizontal two-page magazine ad, or spread), you must work in this format from here on out. There should be a reason why you are doing a spread, too. They cost more money to run (media is more expensive) and art directors love to do them for design purposes, but it’s not always like that in the real world, so be prepared. If you start to develop double-page ads, it will become difficult later in the game to convert them. That is why you must do your thumbnails in the correct ratio as well.
- Starting with a pencil, indicate on the page where your images will go. Include main photos or illustrations, logo, headline, and body copy (if any). Body copy is usually just drawn as a series of lines, not written out. We are still early in the development phase. Add any other major items, such as borders, as well.
- Take your marker and draw over the indications that you have made with your pencil. Chances are, your first rough will be fine. Remember, it just needs to communicate the idea, not look like fine art.
- As with thumbnails, roughs are executed as black & white. We don’t invest the time to add color unless your instructor or creative director specially requests it.
- At this point it’s still all about the idea. Make your roughs as comprehensible as you can. You can, however, begin to indicate how you want the ad to look. Indicate the feel of the type (old style, modern, etc). Is the ad illustrated, or does it use a photo—or neither? Every idea should evoke a style of how you want the final ad to look, feel, and communicate. You should have a pretty good idea of the headline, or headlines if you are working with a bunch of different ones.
Each thumbnail should be using sentences to explain with the big idea and appropriate notes below or to the side (see examples).
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