Top Design Contest
Best of Show
Gathering Interest
When Dave Lear of Odell Advertising, North Canton, Ohio, was given the assignment of designing a poster for The Hoover Company's WindTunnelTM vacuum, you could say he was handed the job of his dreams.
"They don't reign you in too much," said Lear, noting that he has worked on projects for Hoover for many years. "They're a pretty terrific company for giving you a chance to dream."
Lear, who has been a graphic designer for approximately 30 years, explained that the company required that he use the vacuum cleaner, text and foil imprint. The rest was up to him. "They told me Here's the cleaner and we would like you to use foil. What do you have in mind?' " Lear noted that it took him about a day to design the poster.
Kevin Smith, owner of PPI Graphics, Canton, Ohio, which produced the poster, developed the concept of using a foil imprint to create a holographic image of the WindTunnel.
Smith contacted Irene Baker at Hoover, who in turn contracted with Odell to implement the idea in designing the poster.
"I had to use the wind tunnel graphic," explained Lear, "that was a given. And I knew they'd want to foil it, along with the logo. I also wanted a dark background, to make the foil pop."
Smith explained that he chose to enter the poster in the contest because of the amount of technology it incorporates.
"Aqueous coating, the foil-stamped hologram, four-color...it has everything," he said, "not to mention it is an attractive poster."
He noted that Hoover was adamant that the color of the cleaner on the poster match the actual product exactly. "[Dave] is an excellent PhotoShop electronic prepress designerit was perfect on the first try. We didn't have to make any adjustments at all, we just put it on the press and printed it," Smith said.
The poster, designed to catch the consumers' eye at Hoover's display areas, certainly seems to have fulfilled its objective.
"When the light shines, it changes colors constantly," said Smith. "It grabs your eye, which is what it's intended to do."
DESIGNER: Dave Lear, Odell Advertising, North Canton, Ohio.
OBJECTIVE: To draw attention to The Hoover Company's WindTunnelTM product in stores.
DESIGN: The reflection of the foil-imprint hologram on the poster's black, "outer-space" background attracts the consumer's interest. The color of the vacuum cleaner on the poster matches the color of the actual product precisely.
CONSTRUCTION: The 23x26&Mac253; poster was designed in PhotoShop and printed using four-color process inks and aqueous coating. The hologram is foil stamped.
Manufacturer: HoloPak, East Brunswick, N.J.
Press: Artfoil 40&Mac253;
Software used: QuarkXPress, Adobe Photoshop
Paper: Springhill
Ink: Braden Sutphin