Below are the final collateral pieces for the TEDTalks brain trauma call to action collateral project. I do not have photographs yet of the 3D mockups, but these are the flat-graphics. The pieces consist of a magazine ad, a mailer brochure, and a billboard. The collateral pieces were strategically chosen to be seen in areas that the target demo would be exposed to. The teen demographic piece is the magazine ad, the mailer targets adult veterans that frequently receive military information via post mail, and the billboard targets drivers on the road. Overall, some parts of the project are strong, while other parts need work. I believe that because during my initial sketching process my ideas were scattered and broad, narrowing down the project into smaller components was difficult as the project developed. One challenge I noticed was being able to strategically think ahead for how a design decision would visually effect future pieces yet still be able to stand on its own merits without the other pieces present.
First off, I think the decision to not use the photographs of the combat veteran with the masks was not an appropriate decision for the mailer because it breaks visual consistency with the other pieces. Part of my reason for doing this was that I was pleasantly surprised by the attitude and composition of the inside part of the mailer with the brain infographic. I wanted the inside of the graphic to be the focus of the mailer, and I concluded the mask photographs would compete with the graphic for attention priority. In all of the pieces, the unmasked individuals are "revealed" as a page is turned or a billboard is passed, which would have been compositionally difficult with one photo on the outside of the mailer and another on the inside of the mailer next to the large infographic. In hindsight, I believe this "revealing" effect could be achieved by simply adding one more panel to the mailer, so the infographic can remain spanned across the three inside panels. Also, the mailer is the only piece that references TED, which I think needs to be addressed in the other two pieces.
The magazine overall is successful in that its clean and well organized with powerful photography, however, the bottom disclaimers could integrate composition better and have some of the energy of the mailer inside. The magazine ads, when inside a magazine, would have the masked image on the front of the page and the unmasked image on the back of the page so that when a viewer turned the page, the unmasked individual with hope would be "revealed". Ideally, the ad would be present in teen and health magazines. Also, the "I don't recognize you anymore… but I will help with your recovery" verbiage is not addressed in the other pieces which should be, as it further conveys the struggles of everyone effected by traumatic brain injury; the verbiage could also better integrate with the composition.
The billboards are particularly weak because other than the masked individual, none of the other themes (the brain graphic, the verbiage, TED, etc.) are conveyed in the sign. The challenge with a billboard is the incredibly brief timeframe in which the viewer has to digest the information, so further decisions need to be made to unify all of the components. Staying consistent with the "revealed" nature of the unmasked individuals, two billboards would display the advertisement; the first billboard would contain the masked individual, and the second billboard further up the road would contain the unmasked individual.
Overall, I think there are a lot of strong elements present in the collateral project, but all of them need to be massaged further for total unity.