Photographic case studies

Photography is a medium used widely in advertisements, posters and visual design currently. Due to certain programming photographs can be easily edited, composed and manipulated to fit the specific intentions of the visual designer. Below I have analysed two photographic case studies that do all those things and evaluated their effectiveness.

1)      Perfume advert for Viktor and Rolf

The designer for this advertisement has cleverly composed together the product, the model and the city landscape into one cohesive image that represents the brand and their messages. Since this perfume is aimed at women, the model is used as a visual icon of how you will feel or even look beautiful through using this perfume. Also by using the city landscape the product taps into an urban way of life making the product part of an urban woman’s life.

Composition

The two things that stand out in this image is the product itself and the model. By having these both stand out you begin to associate the product with the model and visa versa. The designer has also placed the product and the model in similar positions once again reinforcing the link between the model and the perfume.

Colours

The rich gold colour palette has connotations of sophistication, elegance and expense. Usually people wear gold as a sign of luxury and indulgence and these are the things that the brand wants to represent to form an opinion in their audiences mind but also make the product desired and sell.

Evaluation

I think that this advertisement is a highly effective way to use photography and design techniques to create a cohesive image that would work well in a variety of places for example billboards or magazines but also  an advert that works as a way of selling their product and representing their brand.     Photographic case study 2:

Contrasting heavily to the previous example, this image isn’t used to promote a brand or sell something but to portray a relevant issue and to make a political message. This photo case study relies heavily on mid shot portrait images and a lot of editing.

Composition

Both of the photographs are set up in exactly the same size which symbolizes their equality and also signitifies an objective political perspective. Additionally, in context these are the photos that were used by each candidate for their political campaign so the designer has used those exact photos to directly connect this photographic piece to the election campaigns

Colour/editing

The designer has swapped Obama and Mccain’s skin colours around to make a political comment about the unimportance of skin colour and race within the election campaigns. By simply editing the photos in this way the designer has created a simple photographic case study

Evalutation

Overall I think this is a really effective use of photography within visual designer. Differing from the previous example, the poster depends on simple composed pictures with clever editing accompanied by sans serif typography to get a strong political message across.