Niederer - Social Media Campaign - Final

I've put together this piece, entitled Foodstagram, made digitally in Photoshop and Illustrator finalized on 21 May 2012.

This is a digital project produced in Photoshop and illustrator to represent interface of the iPhone app as well as the website.  I have mixed Foodgawker ( http://foodgawker.com ) and Instagram by encouraging users to Instagram photos of their food and link them to their recipes.  The campaign will feature Instagrammed pictures of food as well as encouragement to participate and share recipes and art.  The challenge is to expand and unite the fans of Foodgawker and Instagram through a combined project that merges the two social networks into an entirely new creature.

The compositional elements that stand out are the way in which the logo combines a camera and a cupcake: driving home both my own personal source of inspiration as well as the function of the application and website.

The target audience is anyone who would take interest in Foodgawker and Instagram: usually 20/30/40-somethings with smartphones.  They like to look at food, and could be anything from a hobby cook to a professional cook to not a cook at all.  The target audience could be male or female; they have a taste for pretty art and enjoy looking at pictures that have been edited in an Instagram style.

The audience currently feels that Foodgawker and Instagram are very adequate, fun, and enjoyable, but they would like to view Instagram photos in more detail (what, exactly, is that kind of cheese?) or they want to have a ratings system (what is the most popular Instagram of the day? week?).  Foodgawker fans are looking to beautify their photos without the intensive process that is Photoshop; they simply want to click and touch and finish the job.

My personal experiences that I bring to the table are that I love looking at food, but perhaps more I love editing the pictures that I take of my food: my roommate and I are stress-bakers, which means that during midterms and finals there's cupcakes and cookies blowing up our apartment…. plenty of photo opportunities that I'm always sure to take advantage of. This is where Foodstagram comes in, where we can combine the recipes we've used with the beautiful photos we've created.  It compares very similarly to the students' works--I feel that it is along the same 'feel' that many of the projects carry.

The single most important purpose is the need to unite beautiful photos of food with their recipes and creators to create a more unified community of food-lovers, photographers, and cooks alike.  We want the audience to feel inspired to replicate the recipes displayed by these beautiful photographs, as well as feel inspired to create beautiful photos of their home-cooked food: in one word, we want the audience to feel inspired.

The final project is successful; it makes for an attractive app that would be engaging to users who enjoy photography and food.  The strengths are in the logo created: it is very effective for getting the point across.  The weaknesses lie in the end execution: the process of using the app may not be as smooth due to the combined features.