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August 2017

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www.postmagazine.com 36 POST AUGUST 2017 MULTISCREEN CONTENT Y ou're looking at three pages of deliverables, in every conceivable dimension, to send in a couple of weeks. Where you begin, what you design and how you structure your workflow will play a big part in the amount of sleep you all get until the job is done. Myself, I'm a big fan of staying well rested and sane, by working smarter — not harder. BEST FOOT FORWARD Most creatives cut their teeth in broad- cast or digital, depending on professional backgrounds. Our tendency is to start with what we know best. However, the best foot forward in this case isn't neces- sarily your best foot. When you're tasked with a multi-plat- form project, where you start should depend on what you're starting with and there are really just three options here: no existing assets; some existing assets with ability and budget to add on; or primarily existing assets that you're locked into, fi- nancially or logistically. Picking one screen that will guide your design thinking based on your asset options will actually help you approach the project holistically. Film aside, it's TV that has set, and continues to set, the production quality standard for motion graphics and anima- tion. Concept to delivery, TV lets creatives execute more complex ideas. Digital ban- ners, though, with less robust software, strict size limitations and technical consid- erations, draw tighter boundaries. So, if you're going to start from scratch, it pays to think from the top down, mean- ing to conceptualize and create for the most flexible, capable — and dimension- ally largest — output first. If that happens to be a TV spot, let broadcast inspire and push the limits of how banners look, opening the door for originality. This way, rather than being guided by a more limiting platform, you can aim to bring as much of the broadcast look into the digital as technology will support. Even if you're more comfortable designing for digital first, you'll up the production qual- ity of your project greatly if your ideation doesn't begin with mobile ads. However, if you're boxed into relying on what's available, to any degree, it could pay off tremendously to mind your assets and design in reverse — beginning your creative process with the smallest or most extreme dimensions. MIND YOUR ASSETS Analyzing the assets you're handed is critical to plotting your design workflow. If the campaign calls for heavy use of photography, starting with TV can land you in a tough spot. You can spend weeks pulling and getting approval on images, and just when everything looks perfectly on brand, you'll realize none of what you have will work in the banners. It's back to square one, selecting and approving a new batch of images for all the other dimensions, but now your job is harder. Any time you're building for multiple screens with existing assets, you must decide how important 100 percent con- sistency is for your campaign. Perhaps it's enough to just carry the essence, in which case you can sort your assets into content buckets, then sort these buckets further according to their composition qualities to make the selection process easier. But if you must use identical imagery for all deliverables, it's even more important to begin with laying out your most challenging compositions first. Allowing the oddball dimensions to guide your decisions will quickly narrow down your possible selections. This is especially important if you don't have the freedom or budget to add on to what you're working with. SIZE MATTERS When I was still working in SD, we tended to design big. Small detail didn't always translate at 720x486 that got blown up to 32 inches. Once HD took over, broadcast design changed drastically. The aesthetic of broadcast acquired fine lines, accents, patterns. Diminutive, much more subtle typography took over. And while one can't generalize all broadcast design, suffice to say there's tremendous range for creative freedom without sacrificing readability of content. With designing for mobile, we don't have to worry about action and title safe- ty. We have to wonder if someone watch- ing on an iPhone 5 will bother to turn the screen or continue to view our work as just slightly more than two inches wide. It was challenging for me, having grown up in broadcast, to take that step back to big and bold, and quit adhering to title safety. It serves its purpose on TV, but steals a lot of screen space. Depending on design, it can look odd on mobile. The number one comment I make directing on smaller screen designs is, "Make it bigger!" The best way to ensure your design fits the device is to view it on that device, and then account for everyone who will view your work on a device of far lesser quality. This may seem obvious, but I, myself, take it for granted that my immersion at the intersection of art and technology means I'm constantly upgrading my devices. While you may not be in the reading glasses category yet, consider your viewers who are, then push your screen a few inches farther away. How's the readability now? Size matters when it comes to mega- bytes too, so thinking ahead to compres- sion also pays off. TIMING IS EVERYTHING Attending some recent industry events, I've heard a number of concerns about the scope of work an average project now requires. These lists of deliverables have grown exponentially over the past few years, and they're likely to continue ex- panding. Yet the timeframes — from idea to delivery — have remained the same as when we only versioned for TV. As a vendor, I can't expect my clients to change. Those on internal creative teams express frustration at the inability to convince their institutional elephants to buy more production time. Therefore, it looks like creatives have to refine work- flows to build smarter and faster. Adapt your workflow and review process for each campaign. Consider everything from discussing staggered delivery, to which deliverables will best serve as you. Picking wrong could cost you time and money. CREATING FOR EVERYWHERE CHALLENGES IN DESIGNING COHESIVE CAMPAIGNS FOR EVERY SCREEN BY MARIA RAPETSKAYA FOUNDER & CREATIVE DIRECTOR UNDEFINED CREATIVE BROOKLYN, NY UNDEFINEDCREATIVE.COM

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