Task 3: Developing Ideas & Concepts in Art Direction Practice

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Visual Mood Board showing potential ideas to develop into my designs – Created using Canva (Canva, 2026)

“Make sure you get your five a day”. A statement the NHS (NHS, 2026) has been teaching us since 2003, with the most impactful messaging coming from the long-standing change-for-life campaign (family-action, 2009). When it came to approaching this brief from the perspective of an art director, I knew that my initial focus needed to be on previous advertisements such as this. One of the first ways I set about developing an initial idea was through the use of visual mood boarding. By focusing on what visual elements and color pallets I might want to pursue in my own designs, it helped shift my attention towards the most vital early-stage development process, mind mapping.

Mind Map showing potential ideas to develop into my designs – Created using Canva (Canva, 2026)

Now when I say mind mapping if we’re approaching this from the position of an art director, then I feel as though a mind map should be a crucial format for establishing key pillars of information. Some of the biggest focuses being target audience and tone. In the case of my brief, my target audience ended up being students between the ages of 13-21. This allowed me to adjust the tone of my pieces to focus on being childlike but not childish, with the ultimate goal being to create something with a bold and recognizable message.

Four Initial Sketches showing potential ideas to develop further in my designs – Created using Procreate (Procreate, 2026)

Thanks to my earlier development work, I now had a rough guideline for my ideas moving forward. So, following on with the natural order of progression, I started working on rough idea concepts/ sketches. This led to four poster concepts based loosely around my research and mood boards. Each one focused primarily on a bold color design and key slogans and messaging, points I’d already addressed as crucial in my earlier stages of development. Now in a real-life art director position, at this stage most of my design choices and iterations would have needed to be approved by a creative director. But let’s pretend we’ve been given the green light. Well in that case my next step needed to be shifting towards developing a working prototype.

Two storyboards showing potential ideas to develop further in my designs – Created using Procreate (Procreate, 2026)

Now you’re probably yelling “But Ronnie you’ve missed a step!” and you’d be correct. Animated prototypes don’t just appear out of thin air, which is why storyboarding was my actual next stage of development. Taking my four sketches, I chose two that I felt would translate well into a shortform animated advertisement. I wanted designs that didn’t feel overcrowded, resulting in me choosing the blender and clock options. From here I created two eight panel storyboards, making sure to consider my overarching narrative (Get your five a day) and consistent brand identity of the NHS (NHS, 2026) throughout the designs.

Final Prototype in a poster format – Created using Canva (Canva, 2026)
Final Prototype in a animated video format – Created using Canva (Canva, 2026)

So, our ducks are all in a row and we’ve set out a clear plan. This meant it was finally time to create my protype. Now, in a real-life art director position, I obviously would have made several prototypes that would have spanned over weeks of feedback and edits. But for now, let’s stick to one. I chose to develop the blender into the animated prototype as I felt with the correct color pallet, it translated best as an NHS (NHS, 2026) advert. With the addition of the NHS (NHS, 2026) blue for both the visuals and the text, alongside the scrapbook-inspired animation technique I feel I have followed my original guidelines and audience, resulting in consistent development, narration and connectivity in my designs.  

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