Brief 1 - Design Is About Doing: Cigarette Idea Experimentation

First of all I began placing the images of the cigarettes in but without cutting around the edges. I decided it wasn't time efficient to do this if the idea wouldn't work.

Once I placed all the cigarettes in and in order I began to get an idea of what I was trying to create so I then began to cut them away from the background. I wanted to do this because the angle each photo was taken from meant that the backgrounds were very different shades and also in some areas the flash had reflected off the plate. 

Once I did that I was left with the final 8 images. I decided to keep the burnt ash at the end because I wanted the cigarettes to remain pretty much the same width the whole way down the line. 

I played around with the curve levels but decided that it wasn't the affect I wanted and it made them look unrealistically dark. This is where I referred back to my research and looked at the image which had been posterised. I decided to do this through mine; I found the appropriate level was 12 because then there was enough colour to make it recognisable and keep it from being too simple but it also meant it got rid of the horrible outlines. 

  

I wanted to see what they looked like standing upright, however I found that this made them look like factory chimneys. This wasn't really the desired Image so I decided to go back to having them lying down like a life bar in a game. I then decided to play around with the background colour.

I found that the greys worked best because they picked out tones in the cigarettes, but the black was too harsh of a contrast and conflicts with the simplicity of the cigarettes. After I had them all lined up I grouped them and then posterised them again but down to 6, this time they all looked a lot better because the tones were clear. It has made them easily distinguishable but at the same time removed the horrible image of the cigarettes original images; they are now more pleasant to look at. 

I asked a few different people for their opinion on this piece of work and feedback on the whole was good. The suggested going with the first grey background and just sorting out the spacing between the cigarettes. I have taken this on board and will sort out the spacing because I think they are right, it doesn't look as good as it can and I will also work with the grey background because it is the strongest colour to use with this piece.