For this project, I was tasked with creating an ad for Story Coffee House, which is a local coffee shop in Jonesboro, Arkansas. The objective of this ad was to promote a welcoming and accepting environment for families with dogs and children. We created a target market (a woman named Tiffany Bank) and had to make sure our ad appealed to her.

During the process of coming up with ideas, I used a few different ideation techniques. First, I listed features of Story Coffee House and tried to come up with why that mattered to my target audience. I also did an exercise that involved writing a letter to Tiffany Bank explaining why Story Coffee House was a good fit for her.

After ideating, I created some sketches. I started with three ideas that I liked. The first idea was a coffee cup, a baby bottle, and a dog bowl with a caption that said “Why come alone? Bring the family.” The second was two images, one clean and organized and one messy with a cup of coffee in both and a caption that said “Bookend your day.” The third idea was a completely text ad that said “Don’t let a bad morning ruin your story.”

I ended up deciding to go with the second idea, and started working on bringing it to life in Photoshop. I went through a few rounds of critique before landing on my final design. I was asked to change things like the background and color of the table, and also to appeal more to the family aspect as my first draft didn’t do that very well.

I believe this ad works because it shows that, while kids can be cute and fun or difficult and messy, Story Coffee can handle both sides. This is emphasized by the coffee cups on either side of the ad. Story is there in the morning when the kids are happy and coloring, and in the afternoon when they’ve gotten tired and threw a fit.

Working on this ad really taught me a lot about what advertising is like. It showed me a lot of the process of coming up with a good ad and how much work goes in to it. I also got to brush up on my Photoshop skills, which I wasn’t very confident in going in to this.