There’s something about a tight deadline that gets the adrenaline pumping and adds an extra challenge to my process. And when you have a photographer as talented, creative, and laid-back as Michelle McSwain, you know it’s going to be a good time.
Michelle was introduced to a client whose creative brief easily lined up with her line of work. So, to show them her full potential, she wanted a new treatment to show her photos and capabilities in a sophisticated, but fun display. The added challenge was she had about 24 hours to put it all together. So, she came to Wonderful Machine, and together, we created a template for this pitch—as well as future projects.
Whether designing a template, emailer, or logo, I start my service by getting to know the photographer’s brand and learning their goals and preferences. Once I gain the info I need, I create several options—all implementing different aspects of their brand.
I sent Michelle three options. In the first option, diagonal color blocks stretched across the corners of the page. These shapes were meant to represent the downward slope in the “M” that makes up Michelle’s logo. A combination of placement and transparency was also used to give a layered look to each page.
The second option used a similar concept, but instead, I went for straight strips, that ranged in placement, color, and transparency. The title of each page was a bit larger in this second option and bled into the strips to tie the design together! Also note, in all three options, I stuck to a palette used for Michelle’s logo and website.
Option 3 used a darker background and used her logo as the main design element. For the cover, I cropped photos to fit into the negative space of the logo. And on the interior pages, by mixing up the size and transparency of the logo, I was able to lay it over top of the photos and text.
Sometimes you make several variations, but you know deep down what the client is going to go for. In this case, I had a good feeling about that first option, and I was right! It was the end of the day and Michelle wanted to move in the direction of diagonal color blocks. By the next morning, we were ready to officially put everything together!
We wanted to use a palette that lined up with Michelle’s brand, but also the client’s identity. With that in mind, I made some initial tweaks to the design and added an extra page of graphic elements before sending it over to Michelle.
I gave instructions to copy any triangle and paste it to the desired page. She’d mostly have to just adjust the opacity and be good to go.
She is familiar with keynote (an apple-based program that we often use to create treatments) so we knew it’d be easiest for her to add photos and text, and I would go through everything to make sure the layout was as strong as possible.
Michelle sent her changes over for me to make my adjustments. Everything looked great—all I had to do at that point was adjust the size and arrangement of some of the elements, depending on if I wanted a color block in front or behind a photo.
Working hand-in-hand, we met the deadline and were able to get this treatment to the client! And now she had a kick-ass template to share with future clients as well!
Here’s what she had to say:
Thank you so much for touching base. And thank you x1000 for all your speedy help with the treatment. It came out so beautifully and I am so grateful for the quick turnaround. It’s been a little crazy over here and I ended up not winning that particular bid but I’ve already used the treatment again for a different proposal and won that one 🙂 🙂 So grateful for all your hard work.