The brief. As part of the marketing communications for Blue Bunny's in-store activations during the World Cup season, I wanted to evoke the emotions of football (soccer) lovers while also informing people about the brand's offerings.
The goal was to create a campaign that would resonate with the passionate fan base of the world's biggest sporting event, tapping into their excitement and enthusiasm for the game. At the same time, it was important to effectively communicate the relevant product information and promotions that Blue Bunny had planned for the in-store activations.
I had initially posted a blog about how I came up with the design for Blue Bunny's World Cup in-store activation campaign. Now, I've decided to refresh that content, providing more detailed information about the technical aspects of the design and shedding further light on the creative process behind it.
By delving deeper into the technical details and the creative journey, I hope to offer a more comprehensive understanding of how the campaign was developed. This will not only provide valuable insights for fellow designers and marketers but also give readers a more holistic view of the thought processes and design decisions that went into bringing this project to life.
The inspiration. As with most things, it all started with a thought. I must've Googled "ice cream ads," and then I stumbled upon an Ads of the World piece by Eugenio Reyes of Leo Burnett Venezuela, created for the brand Don Toallin and titled "Hot Chocolate, Ice Cream." The piece featured two magnificent design works, but the one that caught my eye was the one with a hand holding a cone with scrumptious, melting ice cream making a mess. I thought that it was an amazing visual showcasing ice cream cones and might be better suited towards that purpose. I saw the exact vision of the finished work in my mind.
Credits. Advertising Agency: Leo Burnett Venezuela. Executive Creative Director: Fabian Bonelli. Creative Director / Art Director: Eugenio Reyes. Creative Director / Art Director / Copywriter: Virgilio Flores. Art Director: Eduardo Gomes. Photographer: Rodolfo Benitez
The next important visual element was the most coveted prize in sports history: the men's international football (soccer) World Cup. Nothing unites a footballing nation and causes such a ripple effect of sales and purchases miles away from the hosting nation like the World Cup. From watch parties to World Cup villages, Nigeria is a football-loving nation, and every four years, all brands aim to tap into the football fever.
However, that excitement can quickly grind to an 80% reduction in participation once a team gets knocked out of the tournament, as has often been the case for Nigeria. Therefore, it is crucial for brands to tap into the World Cup fever early, before the excitement starts to wane.
Enough with the chit-chat, let's dive into the technical details. The first step in any photo manipulation project is to visualize the end goal. With that in mind, you can itemize all the required elements and identify the techniques that need to be applied to each element to achieve the desired effect.
For the Blue Bunny Scoop Festival campaign, the list of items required included:
A gripping hand
A World Cup trophy
An ice cream cone
Scoops of ice cream
All the manipulations going forward were executed in Adobe Photoshop, leveraging the powerful tools and features of the software to bring this concept to life.
Step 1 - Prepare the canvas. To begin, I strategically placed ice cream scoops of varying sizes to depict a sense of depth and perspective. I then blurred the farthest cones to reinforce the perspective, creating an illusion of an endless number of cones. Importantly, I left a hole in the middle of the arrangement, reserving that space for the next step in the process.
By carefully arranging the ice cream scoops and applying selective blurring, I was able to construct a visually compelling foundation that would serve as the backdrop for the rest of the design elements.
Step 2 - The hand. For the next step, I used my personal favorite selection tool - the polygon lasso tool. However, some designers may prefer to use the magic wand or even a shape tool (though that's a rather unconventional approach).
Regardless of the tool, the key is to zoom in so close that you can see the individual pixels. This allows you to make a precise selection and perfect the edges of the hand. Once the selection is made, I placed the hand behind the front scoop layers, but in front of the scoop layers behind, seamlessly integrating it into the composition.
Step 3 - Grab the cup. For the next step, I repeated the selection process to isolate the World Cup trophy. I carefully cut out some space for the ice cream scoop to sit atop the trophy, by cropping out the "world" from the World Cup design. I then placed the shaft of the World Cup trophy in the hand, and created a separate layer for the shadows. This is where my sketching and art fundamentals came into play, as I used the brush tool to make the shadows look natural and seamless.
To further integrate the hand and the World Cup trophy, I utilized the curves tool to manipulate the colors of both elements, ensuring they matched and blended harmoniously within the overall composition.
Step 4 - Finish strong. The final step in the process was perhaps the most crucial - ensuring that the entire composition looked natural and believable. This required hours of meticulous retouching, cutting, cropping, color adjustments, and clone stamping.
I carefully worked to integrate the ice cream scoops seamlessly into the scene, paying close attention to the placement, shadows, and overall blending with the other elements. By clone stamping parts of the ice cream onto other areas of the image, I was able to create a cohesive and consistent visual narrative.
Ultimately, the goal was to convince the viewer that the story I had crafted was real and authentic. Through this painstaking attention to detail and a deep understanding of photo manipulation techniques, I was able to achieve a final result that was both visually striking and believable.
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