Graphic Design Research: Steelseries website
Steelseries Advertising and style: Website
Overview, homepage and collaboration:
The Steelseries website becomes a plethora of inspiration to take in to account when advertising a product and appealing to specific markets. The front page, though extremely zoomed out, encompasses the vivid imagery that Steelseries provides and what’s to come. From the beginning, you can see from this screenshot alone as to how many collaborations occur between the brand and popular subjects relating to the gaming industry. For example, you have images of the worldwide phenomenon Fortnite in the background of the Arctis 7 Headset preview, and this is a trend that Steelseries carry on with throughout their products. This is a good way to appeal to the market of gamers because it connotes that it’s the best equipment for the game, it makes it stand out, look professional, and most of all, work seamlessly in to the setting, so it feels like it’s supposed to be a part of the game. Working and collaborating with popular trends within the industry would make the appeal for the product increase too, due to popularity of the game and people wanting the newest apparel associated with it. If the equipment not featured in the typical in a dim room, with computer gear that has photographically edited to be blurred out so the focus is on the product (see example 2), you can usually find that their products have been photographically edited to be a part of a scene within a game, or a scene in general.
Screenshot
Analysis
In such case, the surface design of each product was chosen by sources from the collaboration, in this example, a particular pattern within a video game that has been transferred on to a mouse mat and a mouse. Although a keyboard is featured, it is not part of the collaboration project as it does not have the design.
The Howl design is one of many collaborations for popular events and games, here are some of the others:
The Howl design is one of many collaborations for popular events and games, here are some of the others:
Summary:
Collaboration projects are definitely an area to focus on within advertisement, as they help to simultaneously promote the product to a wider audience who is interested in one or two of the subjects of collaboration, as well as a more niche audience who will actually buy these products as collectibles, or perhaps use them too. Either way, its a tried method, and it definitely works across the industry of product promotion, creation and design. of course computer peripherals / games are not for everyone and appeal to a small audience, but more notable collaboration projects between companies happen all across the spectrum of industries, clothing being the most well recognized (for example, Louis Vuitton x Supreme), but also between movies and products (Spectre x Belvedier), or between musical artists creating a song in a collaborative fashion to promote both names, the list goes on. I should take in to consideration what appeals to the market of people that buy high end computer peripherals
Collaboration projects are definitely an area to focus on within advertisement, as they help to simultaneously promote the product to a wider audience who is interested in one or two of the subjects of collaboration, as well as a more niche audience who will actually buy these products as collectibles, or perhaps use them too. Either way, its a tried method, and it definitely works across the industry of product promotion, creation and design. of course computer peripherals / games are not for everyone and appeal to a small audience, but more notable collaboration projects between companies happen all across the spectrum of industries, clothing being the most well recognized (for example, Louis Vuitton x Supreme), but also between movies and products (Spectre x Belvedier), or between musical artists creating a song in a collaborative fashion to promote both names, the list goes on. I should take in to consideration what appeals to the market of people that buy high end computer peripherals
Composition of imagery, Colour schemes, and how the brand features on each product
The product is never on its own if it doesn’t have to be. When it comes to taking the photographs of the products within their typical setup for a computer, you’ll never see that it’s just one Steelseries product being featured in the frame. Take a mouse for example, it would be the main focus, the camera focus would be centered around that object and the scene of a computer setup in the background to really bring the product in to the forefront. But if you look around, the mouse will be resting on a Steelseries mouse-mat, next to a Steelseries keyboard, and perhaps being operated by someone wearing a Steelseries headset, tying in advertisements for other products, and showing how, to the demographic audience of gamers, that all of their products work harmoniously with one another. An important thing to note with the photography featured within these advertisements, they use a lot of effects and filters, and vibrant colors to really draw the eye. This is really accentuated through the use of the products LED’s in poorly lit, yet colorfully lit rooms to create a lovely, vibrant eye catching color palette.
The thing about Steelseries is, that having a really specific color palette to their brand would limit the ways in which they would be able to take these photographs used to advertise their products. Other than black and white, their “brand color” would be orange, but this is loosely enforced across product advertisements and photography, and is only really used when viewing products on the website as their standalone product, and on packaging color schemes.
How will I use this information to develop advertisement:
With all things considered, it would be easy to create sets and scenes that look official to the SteelSeries brand. This is great for referencing the advertisements i create in relation to their products to make it more believable.