It this new series of fitness club billboards, the goal was simple. Catch people's attention with athletic imagery, while offering them the chance of empowerment without all the usual spew of insulting their current body, or how their life will immediately change for the better. Fitness is an evolving process, that should be in enjoyed in itself, as well as the end results.

The imagery was layered with bright light flares, showcasing the athlete's transformational state. Aside from blending into a black background, and giving the photos a metallic tint, sweat spray was added in, to give it that extra power workout at the gym feel.

 There are all kinds of different tradeshow booths at events, especially tourism ones, ranging from crazy set designs and luxurious props, to gimmicky costumes and poorly designed graphics. In a continuation of an existing "Inspired Conferencing" theme, this display ended up being a photoshoot followed by many long hours of photoshopping together a garden panorama at a 20 foot resolution. Combined with hundreds of hand drawn idea doodles overlayed on top of it, it was the type of project that didn't really ever seem to have an end in site.

Fortunately it did eventually see completion, and was creatively combined with real flowers, garden rocks and a bird bath, to bring the garden to life off the display and into the third dimension. Conferencing is often a dull theme, so something of this visual nature providing a different look and feel, successfully stood out from the crowd. In fact, it ended up being voted one of the five hottest booths at the show by Cvent, the only one which actually utilizing simple designed graphics.

Billboards are an exciting form of advertising that have held their own in the digital age. The opportunity to position your message in a high traffic spot, and not have to worry about distribution still goes a long way. Not to mention the esteem that comes along with your branding being out there, large and in charge for the world to see.

In designing a billboard campaign there are a few points I think important to keep in mind. First, the scale is completely different from typical advertising. The print will be huge, so details in retouching and letterspacing are important to be precise on-screen. And second, the billboard will generally not be right in front of a person's face, so the layout must be simple, with careful attention focused on bringing out the key element(s) first. The cool, yet challenging aspect to billboards is having a solid design that works for the entire campaign, so that people can recognize the different locations as being part of the same branding. In the series for The Club at White Oaks, I tried to do just that, promote an inclusive fitness club with an image and only a few words, while giving people a sense that there are more pieces to the puzzle.