Designing a Chanel advert

 In order to strengthen my editing skills, I wanted to design an ad campaign which would be reminiscent of Chanel's Valentines day ads shown on social media. Due to the pandemic, I did not have access to the software that would give me the desired effect, however, I will explain my plans anyway. The software I used was the free editing software, GIMP.

Mood board of the valentines day adverts shown on social media as well as other memorable campaigns/products:

I wanted to use Chanel no.5 as the central product, this is due to it's history within the fashion house. Noted by the BBC, the history of the perfume is that Coco Chanel wanted to create a perfume which 'could describe the new, modern woman she epitomised.'  Ernest Beaux, a perfumer, took up Chanel's challenge and created 10 samples for her to try. He numbered them 1 to 5 and 20 to 24 - Coco picked no. 5. (1)

In my mood board, there is an advertisement with the tagline, 'Chanel becomes the woman you are.' I thought this encapsulated the essence of the brand and decided to use that as the tagline within my design. Whilst I think the captions of the valentines adverts are charming, I wanted something that could be universal - the caption from the 1950's advert is just that. 

Removing the background so the image is free to be moved around.

My first step was removing the white background from the image so the Chanel bottle stands freely on it's own. As you can see from the layers section, I did achieve this. To remove the background of the original image, I used an alpha channel. I added a layer mask, using the white opacity to trace around the image. By doing this, it makes the background transparent.  This was highly tedious, however, it ensured I got the best results. 

Duplicating the images.

After removing the background from the image, I wanted to duplicate the image, creating a collage of the perfume. I used guidelines to make sure the distribution of the image was equal. I separated each row into a different layer group, therefore I could change things easily if I needed to. 

Creating the grey background.

As shown in my mood board, the Chanel's adverts had a grey colour theme. Therefore, I utilised the grey filter in GIMP. I lowered the saturation to -80, giving it the washed out look shown on the adverts. I also raised the lightness to 80. 

Adding the border

A characteristic of the Chanel adverts was the border. I did this by using the Script-Fu method on GIMP. I set the border colour to white and I did not add the delta-value as this wouldn't be my desired effect (the delta value acts as shading - something which isn't seen in the Chanel adverts.)

Adding the phrase

My first hurdle was finding a font which was like Chanel's. I found a font entitled, 'Couture' which was easy to download into GIMP.  I decided on use the colour red as it is one of Chanel's main colours. This was detailed in this video: youtube.com/watch?v=TaCdAscgpU0 .  Like mentioned previously, the tagline was first shown in a 1950's advert. 

What I would have done if I had the correct software
If you look closely in the Chanel adverts, you can see a small crease line as though the image has been folded. As I didn't have access to Photoshop, I couldn't achieve this. 

Here are the steps I would have taken to achieve the folded line, which would make my interpretation more accurate:

1. I would add a blank layer, in between the text and the grey Chanel image
2. I would place 2 guides: 1 vertical guide at the middle of the page, the other guide will be a horizontal guide also in the middle of the page.
3. Using the rectangular marquee tool, I would drag an outline around the first section.
4. I would select the gradient tool, using the black to white filter. 
5. I would drag the filter diagonally from the left corner to the top right corner
6. For the next 3 sections, I would alternate it from: the top right corner to the left corner; then the left corner to the right corner
7. I would change the blend mode to 'Soft light'
8. I would apply the plastic wrap filter onto the image

To create the intense folded line, you have to add a new layer and choose a splatter like brush, using the guides previously set to trace down the horizontal and vertical line. 

Finish Result:

References/websites used- 

(1) https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-13565155#:~:text=In%201921%2C%20a%20clever%20French,the%20world's%20most%20iconic%20perfume.