Adobe EXPRESSIVE A 2023:
Photo Composite
Adobe contacted me asking if I would create some artwork for them. The plan was for em to be part of a selection of artist who would create and eclectic collection of images to use as the Black Friday campaign.
In my case they wanted me to create a photo composite of course, but instead of having me coming up with the concept randomly, they gave me a mood board as a guideline for the concept they wanted me to pursuit ( See image below).
They wanted a surreal piece featuring a large body of water in the sky with some exotic birds; these are called Grey Crowned Cranes. They also wanted some water lilies floating around the birds. Pretty straight forward surrealism and a great concept for a retouching and photo composite project. I was super excited!
I also wanted to add my own flavor to this piece so I pitched the idea of a portal where these cranes are coming from. A portal from a completely different world, maybe a dry one instead of water, way more colorful and also it would be cool if the cranes were flamingos within the other world / universe but once the cross the portal they turn into the cranes. That was my idea, they loved it and gave me green light to go for it.
This photo manipulation exercise would require A LOT of images of course. I source all of the from Adobe Stock®. I was able to find all the elements required; it was just a matter of putting them all together.
Once I gathered all my assets it was time to get to work. I used Adobe Photoshop® obviously as it is my image editing software of choice. This wasn't a technically hard photo composite but a meticulous one. I tried to pay a lot of attention to details. I created both worlds (backgrounds) separately. The water world with the cranes and the desert cotton candy world with the flamingos so I could use it as a portal. Here is a layer breakdown of the whole photo composite process for this piece:
THE EXPRESSIVE A ADAPTATION
Part of the brief was for the concept and execution to be adaptable to what Adobe calls an "Expressive A", which is a version of Adobe's logo dressed as the artwork. I tried to have the water world be the more prominent one within the A; but then the portal idea wouldn't read as easily because it would be very small in the background. Also the diagonal crops of the A made it kind of awkward.
After consulting with the Creative Director we agreed that the best solution was for the A to be the portal itself and for the flamingos to be more present that way they could come out of the A as cranes. This way the concept remains the same and at the same time we can show up the world that represents the fun side of this surrealistic concept.
The Expressive A needed to be transparent because it would be used on top of Adobe's main color backgrounds: Red, Black and White. I made sure it was the case.
After providing all the assets to Adobe, including the editable Photoshop files their team trans form my artwork and the ones from the other selected artist as part of the materials for the 2023 Adobe Black Friday Campaign.
They created both still image assets featuring the different Expressive A's as well as animations for the logo mutating from one artwork to the next. Pretty cool! See below:
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