Art Direction and Commercial Photography
Art Direction and Commercial Photography
I came across these comps (short for comprehensive) the other day and thought it might be fun to share them along with my final images that were based on them. In commercial advertising photography, a comp is used to give the photographer, along with others involved in the creative process, a good idea of what the final ad is going to look like. As the photographer it not only gives us a good image to shoot for, but it also gives us important information such as where the copy is going to be placed and whether that area needs to be dark or light to allow the type to be legible. This is also very important for editorial photography, in particular, when shooting for the cover.
The following comps were drawn up by Matthew Ebbing, art director for TBD Advertising in Bend Oregon. They cover two campaigns that were put together for Decipher, a marketing research company. Sometimes stock photography shots are used in the comps, but if the art director is a capable illustrator, a drawing is more likely what you will get. These advertising comps provided by Matt are great as far as comps go. One of the most memorable comps that I had to work with was from a creative director of a large national magazine in New York City – it was drawn up on a cocktail napkin during a three martini lunch. As you can imagine some comps are very loose and leave a lot of creative freedom for the photographer.
Both vertical and horizontal versions were done for all of these ads.
And then this, became this….
