Jason Little Treatment
I don’t get to work on treatments often, so I’m always stoked to take these on and mix it up from my Emailer routine. And I couldn’t have asked for a better project to work on. Chicago-based Jason Little has a bright, vibrant brand — his style is not unheard of for a food photographer, but it’s certainly exciting to see how creative he is with his colorful backdrops and bright lighting.
Jason was familiar with treatments, but he never took the extra step to make one that was specially tailored for his brand. Here is the list of goals for this project and I quote:
• Overall a more professional look that replaces my current high school PowerPoint design
• Would love the tone to reflect a ’boutique’ brand vs. corporate or uber polished. Think hit indie movie vs big-budget blockbuster
• Would still like to maintain the fun/playful/lighthearted elements of my previous iteration (that’s mostly in the copy, however)
• With the new branding direction some loose inspiration is coming from the 60s/70s sci-fi novel cover design, new wave and psychedelic music album designs, minimal/angular 80s design elements.
The first option featured a zoomed-in photo with a color filter that acts as the background/border for the main image on each page. The background photo becomes the main image shown on the next page. An abbreviated submark is used at the top left corner of each page.
The second option contains photos displayed in a masonry grid that takes up about half of each page. Full bleed pages are also used to separate/bookmark sections of the treatment. Each page is labeled with colorful text (color based on the images displayed). A vertical line to highlight the text and the page number matches the header.
Option three features a large, white strip that lies over a masonry grid of images for the cover. Jason’s logo is cut out of the white block and shows the images in the background. A large, left-justified white block lies over a full bleed image on the interior pages. Jason’s abbreviated submark is cut out of white at the top left corner to show the background image. Each page is labeled with colorful text (color based on the images displayed). A vertical line to highlight the text and the page number matches the header.
Jason chose a mix of options two and three. The cover of option three was a total winner, as well as the submarks from option three. However, Jason was more intrigued by the masonry grid from option two. By combining these two styles, we created a solid solution for his treatment.
We were on a roll. Jason was happy with the final design so now we just had to figure out what the treatment was going to say. We decided to include pages for the cover, about the project, production details, the team, a flex page, and a farewell page (to which I cleverly added an 80s movie/food-specific pun and really like to point out).
We wrapped up the project within the next day. Jason needed the treatment to pitch to an actual client! With a few tweaks, he filled in all his information and sent it off!