Exhibit 3
Improving Mental Health Instagram ad
Background:
For this project, I created an Instagram ad for Greater Good Magazine: Science-based Insights for a Meaningful Life. This ad focuses on the information in the article, Four Things to Do Every Day for Your Mental Health. Daily focus on improving mental health is crucial to living a happy live. I hope this Instagram ad will inspire others.
Design:
Contrast: I used two secondary hues, a lavender and a coral. I would not normally use these two colors together but I wanted to experiment with the contrast. The cool tones of the purple are are a good contrast with the yellows in the picture of the woman.
Repetition: I repeated the lines in the list using the same brush texture, size, and length. The lavender is used on both the left and the small boxes.
Alignment: The alignment on this one is a bit challenging. I wanted to honor the inspiration layout by matching background but not too closely. I divided the background using the rule of thirds. I aligned the image of the woman and a background purple box with third guideline on the left. I wanted the text to have a strong left alignment with the edge of the image, but when the title was aligned left it seemed too force. so I centered aligned the header. In the inspiration layout the paint strokes and text are centered. I decided to align the paint strokes with the center of the title but align the text in the paint lines to the left to emphasis the alignment with the image.
Proximity: I grouped the list closer together. At first I had them spread out to fill the space between the title and the bottom box but I didn't like it so I moved them closer together to emphasize the list feature.
Color: I found a Rose Hues inspiration palette on Pinterest that contained an interesting combination of purples and oranges.
Type: Two contrast typefaces are used - a script (Mango Salsa) and a sans serif (Eras Medium ITC).
Photoshop Skills Used:
Layout: I added rule of third guidelines. The eye dropper tool allowed me to select the shade of lavender from the inspiration color palette which I used to paint the selected area. I repeated this same process for the remainder of the layout and the two small boxes.
Image of the woman: I used the art history brush to give the image a painted feeling. I used the history brush to clean up the definition of the silhouette. I wanted more texture so I stylized it using the oil paint feature, (stylization: 0.5; cleanliness 7.7; scale: 8.5; bristle detail: 1.1; lighting checked, angle -60 degrees; shine 1.3). I cropped the image of the woman and changed it to a smart object. I added a drop shadow to make the image stand out.
Outer Glow: I added outer glow the script and list text. This gives the text a little pop.
Brushed lines: I added guidelines to the edges of the word "Health". I selected Kyles Bonus Chunky Charcoal brush. I held the shift key down as I painted so the lines were straight going from one guide line to the next. The strokes seemed a bit flat so I added some bevel and emboss. This gave the brush lines a nice raised texture.
Credits:
Rose Hues color palatte: Pinterest. Image of the woman: Pixabay; Layout inspiration: Template Monster.
Inspiration Color Palatte
Layout inspiration
Original Image