Task 2 - style and poster research

Style research

 I have decided to do a research about different kinds of food photography styles, before I decided on what style of food photography I am going to do. I have found six different types of food photography styles which are:

• Product
• Journalist and straight forward
• Bright and propped
• Lifestyle
• Bold and clean
• Chiaroscuro

Product

Product style in food photography is very important as majority of photographers use this style for advert photography. The aim of this style is to present the product in the best way to be able to sell it. The characteristics of this style are: usually black or white background sometimes with simple location, glossy image, usually studio light with small shadows, careful and clean styling.

 

Journalist and straight forward

Journalist style is simply the preparation of food. It's goal is to show the back story of how the food comes to be, to show what the food looks like before it's done and what it looks like when it's being prepared. The characteristics for this style are: documentary style, action shots, minimal props, strong and clear light.

Bright and propped
The characteristics of this style are: soft light, use of colours and patterns, happy images, full framing with foreground and background, vintage props. There is more of the scene available to these photos, we can use quite a few props, relevant to our food to present it in it's best way.

Lifestyle
In this style you have to think about the full image, you need to think about the background, the context in which the food is eaten and the story behind the photo. In my opinion this is one of the most hardest styles of food photography. The characteristics of this style are: more context to the food, larger aperture to bring more into the frame of the photo, casual styling.

Bold and clean
Bold and clean style concentrates only on the food, with few distractions from the main subject. It's idea is to make the food standout on it's own, by keeping the rest of the image very clean. By doing this the eye is immediately drawn the attention to the food, and it makes the viewer focus on the interesting details within the food rather than concentrate on a scene to create more interest. The characteristics of this style are: strong focus on the food, tighter framing, minimal props and clean styling, solid background, balance between light and shadow.

Chiaroscuro
This style's aim is to create a contrast between light and dark. The characteristics of this food photography style are: use of light and deep for dramatic focus on subject, moody images, strong contrast.

My style

Even after all of the research that I did I still wasn't sure what style of food photography I want to do, therefore I have decided to take some photos at home first and see what looks best. I have decided to do some HDR food photos, frozen food, cut in half and up side down as well as some other photos. These are there four main techniques that I want to try out to see what looks best.

Contact sheets for the rest of my food photos:

My style will be based on cafe, mainly different kinds of coffees, tea's and cakes. Target audience for my style is mainly adults but also teenagers, who like to go to cafe's in their spare time, at break or during shopping for a nice coffee, tea and cake. I have gained the ideas from my research as well as practice photos that I took before planning as well as lunch photos that we had to take for five days. They have really helped me because I have realized which techniques work and which are hard to do and how I can improve them.  The images are going to be commercial because they I will show them in the best possible way.

Poster research

I have decided to do research of historical as well as some contemporary food posters for restaurants, cafes and different kinds of advertisements, but first of all I have decided to do a small research about typography and see how it can be used, and how important it is.

Typography

There are different types of typography and the one that I am interested in and I did research about is display typography which is used on book covers, posters and different kinds of advertising.I have research more in depth about advertising typography. Typography is very important when it comes to advertising different things on for example posters. It simply means 'to write'. Typography posters can be very creative, but we also need to remember about the colour and the size, which are two most important things. Designers usually use typography to create a mood in an advertisement. It is often used to catch the viewers attention, that's why it also needs to e readable and creative at the same time.

Contemporary food posters

This first contemporary food poster that I have found, is an advertisement of milk. As we all know milk is good for our teeth, the designer decided to place the glasses of milk in an shape of a jaw, so that the glasses of milk represent our white teeth. It's really creative and it really caught my attention. There isn't much of text on this poster. We can only see their logo in the bottom right, which even tough is small, it's clear to see because the colours are matched so well that is stands out. The background of the photo is plain, which in this case works well because we can clearly see the image of milk. I also really like the reflection of the glasses. The layout of this poster is really simple and effective, but I think there is a little bit of space wasted. As in most of the posters we can find the text at the bottom and a photo at the top. The target audience for this poster would be mainly children but parents as well.

This is another contemporary poster of a cafe. I really like this and it also gave me a lot of inspiration because this is something that I would like to do. I really like the layout of this poster. We have a photo at one side and the text, which is a price list on the other. We have a coffee with a steam, and some coffee beans at the side. I really like the steam even though it look a little bit fake to me, but it presents the coffee very well. The beans give us an extra effect to show that the coffee is fresh. It is a very straight forward poster but it looks really nice. The text stands out from the dark background, heading is big and bold and easy to see, subheading are also bold but smaller that the main heading and bigger from the rest of the text. We can also see an important message on this poster which is the telephone number and it's also nice and bold and easy to see. I really like this photo in general and I have definitely gained a lot of inspiration from it.

Some of these contemporary posters have really caught my eye because of the creativity. I also really like the idea of how some of them are in landscape format instead of like we see most of them which are in a portrait format.

Historical food posters

1960

1969

This McDonald's advertisement from 1969 as we can see is a lot more realistic than McDonald's advertisements today. There is a big difference. This food advert has a very simple layout as well as composition. The subject which is big mac, is take from eye level angle and it's composed at the bottom of the frame of the advert. Typography in this advert is also very simple. There is simple bold, white text which tells us what they're advertising, and a small text at the bottom of the advert with slogan and their logo, which we can't really see in this photo because it has been cropped. White and bold text stands out from the dark background even though it's not very interesting and it's just simple. I don't think there is specific target audience in terms of age, it can be just for anyone who wan't to eat something and people, both children and adults who like fast food. I really like this advert, even though I don't think it looks very interesting and attractive, I think it look really realistic and that's what is good about this advert. McDonald's now look really fake, all sandwiches look really fake because they are trying to make them look really good, where as this one looks exactly the same as we would get it in McDonald's if we were going to buy it. In 1969 people might didn't like this because the sandwich doesn't look really good but now when we compare them to adverts from 2014 we can see a difference and in my opinion this one looks better even with the dull colours and not very interesting layout.

1970

This is another historical food advertisement which I think is very interesting and I have few reasons why I can get inspiration from this.First of all, I really like the idea how they have shown in what situations the subject that is being advertised can be used an how. Giving examples on this poster is very helpful for the viewers but in this case I think the way the photos have been layout is a little bit too much. There is too many photos and you don't know what to look at first, it happened in my case. The typography is also very simple, which is usually good, but in this case the title isn't outstanding and the first thing we realise while looking at this poster is the photos because of the bright colours. At the bottom they also gave us ideas of how it can be used and where, they have wrote this is small black writing against white background, it's good because even though it's small it's still readable. Target audience for this poster would be families, friends and lovers who like spending nice and warm day out, going on picnic in nice places. 

1971

1966

From the research that I have done I have realized that historical posters, all had simple layout as well as typography. The layout was simple, there was just one photo either at the bottom of the poster or at the top of the poster, or in some cases there was a collage of simple photos, all put together. Then there was a lot of space, usually white background for a text. The text was always bold, dark and clear to see. It was readable which made it a little bit boring because it wasn't very creative.  Target audience was clear and easy to see. All of the historical posters were easy to understand and most of them were also eye catching. Most of the were black and white or had really dull colours, but they were defiantly more realistic than they are now. 

Other research

I have also found few TV adverts which have helped me and some of them have really inspired me in terms of composition of the photo as well as how I can style my food to show it from the best side. I have looked at coffee adverts to help me with my style and final photos.

Costa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5_3O50SnfY
McDonalds: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1K8f-bfQl3c
Starbucks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-G36lbRRNtU