LONELY HEARTS

LONELY HEARTS

The Lonely Hearts project was the first project to be assigned to us as graphic design students at Southport college. It entailed producing a lonely hearts ad based around a specific theme, that we were able to determine ourselves.

My chosen theme was tattoo ink brands. This concept was inspired by my own interests in the body modification industry - therefore my target market was people who share common interests with myself. Aiming this project at myself and like-minded people made it easier and more enjoyable to produce which was helpful as we had a timescale of two weeks to research and design our final outcome.

Prior to creating our ads, we first needed to investigate and analyse the project by carrying out both primary and secondary research. Primary research involves research that we have identified first-hand - materials found in books, nature, shops etc. Secondary research, on the other hand, is information that has already been collected and published that may be relevant to our studies.

Research is an important stage during any project as it helps us gain a clearer understanding of our brief, as well as inspire us to develop our own concepts.

Once I felt I had collected enough research to begin the design process of my final outcome, I started sketching drafts and copies of the ad in order to compare ideas until I had decided on a personal favourite. It is necessary to work on multiple concepts in case the ideas we already have don't work out. I then proceeded to collect logos and images to edit and assemble using Adobe Illustrator CC.

---

THE RESEARCHING PROCESS

The first step of the research process was to produce a mind map in order to to brainstorm ideas and explore potential concepts for the project.

This page from my sketchbook shows the mind map in which I considered:

sources of primary research; sources of secondary research; the target market and categories of potential brand ideas.

This mind map was useful to me as it gave me guidance in the fours areas I needed to research.

I would usually begin my research with primary research, however I found very little primary material in relation to this particular project. In the future, I will try to obtain more first hand research as I personally find it is more educational and influential than secondary research when it comes to generating my own ideas.

Contrary to this, I discovered plenty of convenient and diverse examples of lonely hearts ads on the internet as secondary research that were beneficial to me and the production of my ad.

This is one example of a lonely hearts ad I found on the internet as part of my research. The material I collected taught me what a lonely hearts ad is, as well as the many ways to go about writing my own. This particular example portrayed to me that not all ads are to be taken seriously and that the different styles of writing are what gives the advertisements personality.

Taking my research into consideration, I was then able to identify my theme and target market. I decided to aim the ad at myself and people with similar interests to me. I found that by doing so I was able determine the appearance, writing style and theme of the advertisement easily as I chose these aspects based on my own likes and dislikes.

One of my main interests is tattoo artistry and therefore I themed my design around this and I settled on using tattoo ink brands as the backbone of the advertisement. Finding brands to use was difficult at first as I struggled to find many ink brands that were applicable to this project. I resolved this problem by making a note of as many brand names as possible and manipulated my writing around the ones that worked for me.

To further investigate my target market and theme I created a basic mood board of images found on Google, Pinterest and Instagram that I was attracted to. creating a mood board helped me when it came to designing my final outcome as the images influenced and inspired the aesthetic of my lonely hearts Ad.

---

THE DESIGNING PROCESS

The first step in beginning the design process for me, was writing the frame for my advert. Due to the fact that I had already accumulated a handful of tattoo ink brands that I wanted to use, writing the ad was made easier. I played with a couple of ideas but settled on keeping the writing minimal in order to give the ink logos more emphasis in my design.

Once I was confident with my writing, I proceeded to sketch a few concepts for the appearance of the lonely hearts ad. I knew I wanted to keep the design simple as I was faced with constraints such as: being new to software such as Photoshop and Illustrator, in addition to a two week time frame to complete to project.

I then began finding all the brand logos required for my ad and imported them into Illustrator. I edited each logo using the 'image trace' tool and selected the 'silhouette' option. I found that by doing so, the logos appeared more tattoo-like and therefore emphasized the concept.