Back in the saddle again.
My wife was offered free ad space in a new country women's magazine and she needed to submit her ad design by next week. I haven't thought about designing anything in about four years, but this opportunity intrigued me. I've always loved trying to communicate a concept through different printed mediums. I'm always chasing the answer to: what motivates us to act in a particular manner? What makes us reach out to grasp at that particular bauble and not the other one? I've always found that it comes down to our predetermined social values: what is heroic, what is beautiful, in whom do we do we put our faith?

I approached the ad in the same manner. Ernie has a thousand great shots. She also shoots everything from senior portraits to band photos, but I wanted to find what strips everything down to her core beliefs in photography.

This ad was for Ladies of Country Music. I was thinking of women/ music/ bands/ headshots? I sketched seven or eight thumbnails for the layout, but everything felt messy and cluttered. I didn't find sufficient inspiration until I came across a model's photos, named Hunter. I've always loved that photo shoot and those photos triggered all my design beliefs that were buried under TiVo preferences and Napster playlists.

I love to design in "3's", have tons of white space, and use strong imagery. Marketing research has found that people are fascinated by concept of "3": the beginning, middle, and end. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, that sort of thing. Research has also estimated that the average magazine reader flips by an ad in less than one second. I prefer "idea words" and I hate clutter, so I always design to leave voluminous amounts of white space. The imagery is the bauble. I call it The Underwood Effect (similar to the Aniston Hair Effect of the 90's), because when you see it, you "want to go to there". If a woman sees a great shot of Carrie Underwood, they carry that mental image to a photographer and will always want them to reproduce it. The images of Hunter evoke, even in me, a desire to see that style of shoot reproduced over and over. It speaks to glamour and youth and beauty, and trigger that emotion which makes women say, "Make me look like that". I hope you enjoy it, I had fun making it.