Opulent Ethics' personal ad!

There is a well known saying about “beauty being in the eye of the beholder” but when you are trying to advertise a piece of your work you don’t always want this to be so. Exhibiting your piece of jewellery or a design in its best light, so that it is appreciated by, and appeals to, a wide audience is important. There is a mass of faculties to consider when seeing your work through from conception to promotion. And Opulent Ethics completes each of these every time we produce a new range of ethical jewellery.

You would think that a designer would undertake each of these design and production challenges in a chronological order so once the design is completed then manufacturing goes ahead and that advertising is the last thing done when the piece is complete.

However, things are never that straightforward and each part of the process overlaps with others; for example, manufacturing highlights problems with the designs and sends you straight back to the drawing board. At Opulent Ethics we have always found there to be a close relationship between design conception and advertising as we can’t help but visualise how a piece will look in its display window in the future.

So, as we are moving ahead with the production of our new range of pomanders we have turned our attention to the display and advertising of the pieces.

We have all seen and reacted to numerous iconic adverts including:

Coca-Cola Christmas advert

The red of the background and font of the writing is obviously Coca Cola. And that is not even mentioning their standard Christmas adverts with jolly Santa and the Coca Cola trucks spreading festive spirit.

Van Cleef & Arpels jewellery advert

Their adverts always display the jewellery using strong props which seem to have inspired the design. Aside from this the Van Cleef & Arpels logo is the only other thing on the advert.

Apple MacBook advert

Anything with the Apple symbol on is instantly recogniseable and synonymous with Apple’s clean, sleek, technologically advanced, iconic products.

Guinness Sea Horse advert

The famous contrasting colours of Guinness take centre stage in their advertising and over the years, they have created some of the most iconic images seen.

And what is it that makes these adverts so memorable? A strong brand includes a distinctive logo, font, tagline and colour scheme. Any collaboration of these will instantly bring the brand to the viewers attention.

Many of Opulent Ethics’ favourite adverts are simple in their layout and concept. It is quite common for viewers to lose interest or fail to grasp the point of an advert if there is too much going on. Adverts which focus on one clear point work much better we feel.

The most important point is a strong image. Above all, the advert is there to promote an item or brand and this should be at the heart of the advert. As Opulent Ethics considers how we will layout our pomander adverts we are thinking of the best way of photographing the pieces to convey the point of the range and to show them in their best light.

Also, through this part of our design process Opulent Ethics have been looking at other green, environmental, ethical, Fair Trade brands, especially the luxury ones, to figure out the best ways of conveying Opulent Ethics’ ethical intentions without being self-righteously ethical. From looking at brands such as Green & Blacks and Stella McCartney we feel that their ethical luxury is best conveyed through simple but strong wording, colours and images.

And with regards to the wider presentation of pieces Opulent Ethics try to continue these principles throughout. We do, however, like to make more eye-catching 3-dimensional use of the space we use to present our work. In the past we have used items from what inspired us or props made using the techniques we have used in the production of the piece (such as laser cut signage for Opulent Ethics’ Eveoire` Range which was laser cut vegetable ivory) for a cohesive look. We always err on the side of caution though as we find it very easy to get carried away. 

We hope that, by understanding why other adverts do or don’t work and by adhering to the principles highlighted then we will be able to produce a range of effective, eye-catching classic adverts for our up and coming range. Watch this space!

That’s all for now....