This week was really busy with in-class studio time and a review of campaign visuals and slogans with Professor Khalili. Last week, I did a lot of research on personas, target audiences, and laws. This week, I created the main visuals for the ad campaign and developed the slogan and taglines. I wanted to take inspiration from Smokey the Bear's illustrations, which primarily use line art, so I created a mood board and started working in Procreate. This was my first time using Procreate, and it took some time to get used to it. I was encouraged to explore Procreate after attending a workshop hosted by the GD+I Club at USC. The workshop introduced me to Procreate and its possibilities. Despite realizing that this project was not the best to experiment with a new design tool, I thought it was better to learn now than never. From my experience, I found that Procreate has limited layers compared to Photoshop but offers a variety of brushes that can be purchased online. For this project, I experimented with Procreate's inking brush called "Syrup 1" and its default sketching brush "6B Pencil." I liked that I could create my own library of brushes and save specific brush settings, which was not possible in Photoshop. In developing my illustration style, I started by sketching images of turkeys in my sketchbook. However, the initial illustrations looked either too scared or too angry. I then moved to Procreate and used a reference image of a wild turkey from Unsplash to create my first digital sketch. After critiquing the initial digital sketch, I made improvements through new digital sketches until I found a character model that fit my vision for the ad campaign. I showed this sketch to my father, who suggested the name "Tom." And that's how Tom the turkey was born.

Tom the Turkey is the official mascot of the "Hunt with Care" ad campaign by the Advertising Council, a nonprofit organization that produces, distributes, and promotes public service announcements (PSAs) on behalf of various sponsors, including nonprofit organizations, non-governmental organizations, and agencies of the United States government. The South Carolina state government aims to raise awareness of its Blue Laws, particularly those prohibiting turkey hunting on Sundays in order to preserve the wild turkey population. I have been tasked with creating the visuals and slogan for an ad campaign that spreads this message. Tom the Turkey is the central figure of the ad campaign, embodying characteristics of caring and nurturing as the Caregiver and Innocent archetypes. He is a fun, compassionate, optimistic, and joyful character dedicated to protecting South Carolina's wild turkeys. Tom is on a mission to educate children and their parents about the importance of preserving the wild turkey population and promoting responsible hunting practices with a heartfelt message. With his hopeful slogan, "Hunt with Care," Tom inspires both strength and compassion, encouraging everyone to protect and cherish the wildlife of South Carolina.

After creating my initial visuals and taglines for this ad campaign, I discussed my project progress with Professor Khalili. While she loved the idea of a turkey mascot for the campaign, she felt that the overall visuals were a little lacking and plain. She also thought the taglines were not impactful enough and seemed too generic. We discussed the taglines, and I realized that I didn't have a slogan for my campaign, just taglines. Professor Khalili suggested "Hunt with Care" as the slogan for my campaign and advised that having multiple taglines might not be necessary. She also recommended removing "Tom the Turkey Says," but I am still considering whether to use it. Overall, the visuals were coming together, but the taglines needed a lot of work and might need to be completely revamped.

After considering Professor Khalili's comments, I decided to create a second round of drafts for my campaign's billboards. For this round, I focused on various poses for Tom, not just his signature pose. I also added more details to his design, similar to vintage national park drawings and the classic Smokey the Bear line drawings. While I love the new details, I think I may have added too many, so I need to simplify the visuals to fit the overall look and style I want for this campaign. I believe I'm heading in the right design direction, but I still think Tom's overall look needs to be adjusted to better fit his character design, especially since he'll be on billboards and only seen for a split second by drivers. I also need to work on the background visuals, aiming to find specific images of wooded areas from the Upstate, Midlands, and Pee Dee/Low Country regions of the state, as these are the areas where all three personas are located. Currently, I have placeholder images with halftone-treated textures to give the images some interest and contrast with the visuals. While I like this direction, I need to continue working on these backdrops to achieve the desired look.

For the next phase of this project, I need to create wireframes and visual mockups of my ad campaign's website using Figma. I will be designing for iMac and iPhone 13 Pro applications. I plan to use my billboards as a guide for the visual direction, so it's crucial that I get these visuals right and make them look as I want them to.​