Have you ever looked at an advertisement and thought, “Wow, what were they thinking when they made that…?” Well, when you see my first drafts, I’m sure those are going to be the first nine words you think of.

During our trip to Oregon, my classmates and I took photos for various topics, all which would soon be made in to our own advertisements. We had a natural landscape location, where we were determined to send tourists, a business, of which we were making an advertisement for their general demographic fit, and an environmental advocacy cause to convince our peers of an idea.
My three advertisements were based on the Peter Iredale Shipwreck, Depoe Bay’s very own whale watching facility, and last but not least, keeping the world clean by not littering.
If I can say so myself, without my incredible editing apps I would certainly not be at the finished stage of these ads. I must thank VSCO, for if I hadn’t had the filters they supplied, my photos would be dull and unsaturated. Canva, for your excellent layouts and interesting fonts, and last but not least, Phoster, where the layouts inspired most of my advertisement’s visual design. Editing photos was a long and tiring experience, I carefully picked the best filters for each photo, and then adjusted contrasts, sharpness, brightness, etc.
Apps were a big part of the process, but peer critique definitely made all the difference. Throughout various drafts, new ideas were formed and inspired by my peers, friends, teachers and even parents. The critique helped me see things I didn’t see at first, and completely improved my ads. If not for my Dad, the text would be off balance, if not for Mr. Hughes and Mrs. Willemse I would still have that ugly flower at the bottom of my screen, and if not for Angela, I’d have the ugly “While on the Oregon Coast…” tagline. Yikes.
Sure, the ending product has been submitted, but there is always room for improvement. For next time, I should take more photos, because although the view where the whales swim is spectacular, there isn’t a whale in the photo— yes it’s a bummer, I know. Also, I should give all of my products an equal amount of effort. I’m sure you can see how the first two are much stronger than my last. I didn’t give my advocacy advertisement the amount of editing and critique that the other two got. Lastly, I think asking more people for critique would help more because I only consulted about nine different people.

I will take away many different lessons from this unit, from learning how to take critique to giving it, editing photos beautifully and realizing the techniques used in the media to sell products. This unit has opened my eyes to the advertising world.