Hello, please give me an honest critique of this add I made up.
Thanks

Very nice... and very creative.

Jasz

i would ghost that shot of the watch u have in the bkgd a bit, it's competeing with the main product shot.

try some different type faces for the bottom copy, maybe reduce size a tad, same for leading...looks a little horsey

I'd also lighten the highlights just a bit. Make that foreground watch pop.

Thank you for the suggestion I will work on it.
cathy

Thanks jasz for the photos to work with.

KR - I made the adjustments you suggested, Thanks. And for some reason I always go to large with my type.

Swampy - I gave the main watch some contrast with levels adjustment. That makes it really pop. :-)

then I added some color to the top watch and the shadow.

Very detailed indeed...This is a great ad...:)

Personally I'd lose the BG watch as it distracts from the main product shot and doesn't IMO add anything to the ad.

I like the general execution though.

CathyH,
I have to agree with Gary. The watch in the bg distracts my eyes from the main subject, which looks great.
Ray

great, now retouch the watch. tis a mess. the bg watch is overly blue and too large imo - need a reason to see a close up of the face and it's got to look as good as the main image, but at the same time without distracting from your hero image.

example: http://events.hautehorlogerie.org/IMG/jpg/BaumeMercier_SIHH07_300-2.jpg

edit: the whole thing is blue

Thanks Mchilly, Gary, and Ray I appreciate you comments.

Ant, I have a question about the example you gave, how much of it is retouching and how much of it is illustrated? I mean it seems so perfect, was the metal created with photoshop?

Thanks again.
cathy

cathy, his example looks completely shot (photographed), just cleaned up very carefully, no traces of retouching, like sloppy cloning, smudged pixels, and such.

but i may be wrong.

if you want to take the overall blue out of your ad, add a hue/sat layer on top and just desat the blues about -60, that should be a quick fix that works and brings back the nice silver tones the watch is actually made of..

Still life images, especially watches and the like are nearly illustrated. The metal texture may be real, but they are generally de-saturated and re-colored and even the most minor of imperfections is perfected. A million little paths, airbrush, layer effects, composite pieces, whatever it takes. Jewelry, makeup, watches, you wouldn't believe the amount of retouching.

As an ad, I don't think it works.

It could work, but I don't think the parts of the ad are balanced at the moment.

You're not making a choice about what the focus of this ad is. I'd say (and this may sound weird) make the bottom watch much smaller, add a reflection and place it bottom right. Then take that bg image, keep it the same size and then place that slightly above the middle of the page.

I'd place the logo either where it is now, or bottom left, alligned with the smaller watch.

And I have an issue with the font you're using atm. The watch is round and smooth. You're using a typewriter like font which I think is a bit inappropriate. If you look at watch ads (I only know Omega ones, cuz well, I make those :P) the font is nice and round, Omega CT the font is called. Or use something like..... Neuzeit S, or if you want to keep the feet a bit harsher maybe the Neuzeit Grotesk. You can't really go wrong with Helv Neue (yes it's overused, but there's a reason for that).

Here's a nice list of some fonts for inspiration

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2007/08/08/80-beautiful-fonts-typefaces-for-professional-design/

Put the type anywhere you like, but allign it with something, everything on the page must be in relation to everything else. If an element is just "there" to be there, something's wrong.

Also (this is a personal preference) I don't like centered text. It always feels a bit 80's to me, I'm a fan of left alligned/justified text. But that's a personal thing.

Look at watch ads, and see how they do it. I personally don't like the Tag ads, because they mostly just slap a watch on a celeb and then print it. Plus they use the same picture of the celeb for years and just change the watch.

Anywho. I hope that helps you a bit.

DJSoulglo thanks for the suggestions, I gave it a try. What do you think?
I really liked the link to the top fonts, I was looking something like that not to long ago.

I haven't done any more retouching on the watch, I'm working on the layout of the ad. But if anyone has tips or trickes on doing metal retouching I would be interested.

Thanks KR and Ant for your comments.

Much much nicer.

Now, get the Prestige... block and make it a nicer shape. Make sure you don't have any overhanging words, so line not just the left edge, but also the right edge up.

have a look at the kerning/leading/tracking and make it look more like one whole.

Also every font has problems with spacing out numbers. This has the sad effect that it looks like you can drive a truck through the space between the 1 and the 8. So close up the tracking in that.

I'm not liking the quotemarks " " as it sort of takes away from the serious,nice, sleek appearance of the ad and makes it into a joke, which is a shame, because it's starting to look nicer.

As a last thing, have another look at the way all the elements are spaced out on the page, does it feel balanced? Is there a grid?

Then retouch the watch, take out the blue overtonesm make it all look smooth. And TADAA!!! another ad for the client to dis-approve of :P

DJSoulglo thanks again for your advice.
I was wondering about the 4 word block, weather is should be left and right justified. I was so busy thinking about those I didn't pay enough to the other line. Details, details. I will be working on it.

Cool :)

What program are you doing this in btw?