CASE STUDY: Acro Yoga Fliers

The original flier was an approximately 4” x 4” double-sided card.

The primary issues with this design was that the font was small and the amount of text made it cramped. The front side showed two photos but the physical dimensions of the card make them so small details got lost and all that could be made out were two young, fit women in a challenging-looking pose. The request was to create a new flyer that would hook interest and demonstrate that Acro Yoga is for a wider demographic, that just having interest was all someone would need to get started.

BRAINSTORMING STAGE

The new design would be for an A6 sized card.

An A6 card size would give space to show off specific Acro Yoga poses. I wanted to have this space so that the poses could be clearly seen and understood. This would give a clearer picture of what Acro Yoga is and at the same time present it as a fun activity that anyone can enjoy, not just the ultra-fit or young.

I chose a simplified illustrative style to convey both information and playfulness. Two of the four possible cards show simple, beginner level poses, counter-balancing was chosen for the 3rd pose to show that Acro-Yoga is not always about one person lying on their back and the other being supported above them, and the 4th pose shows the kind of graceful movement that those who stick with Acro-Yoga can learn to do.

GETTING STARTED

Stock photos of the specific poses I would use for the cards was found. These poses became the reference for pencil-drawn versions of the poses that were then scanned in and brought into Illustrator.

An image trace of a stock photo could have led to copyright issues and directly tracing the silhouettes with a Pen tool would have resulted in an unappealing final image. A flat illustrative style means that the more overlap and foreshortening a pose has, the more complex and messier it becomes. By doing a pencil sketch first, I was able to capture the essential pose but also reduce unessential details and take artistic liberties to have a base image that looked like the pose but worked with the simplified style of the final product. 

FIRST-ROUND CONCEPTS

Color scheme

Normal color schemes tend to be 3 to 5 colors for the entire product, however, the need to show a diversity of skin tones, hair colors and clothing styles meant each card had 5-6 colors. This made it challenging to find a unique background color for each card that would work with that card’s color scheme and still feel unified. In the end this challenge was resolved in feedback where it was decided we’d go with 2 background colors.

Slogan: “All Ages, All Bodies, All Fun!”

From the very beginning it was important to convey Acro Yoga’s accessible nature to anyone of any shape, size or age. People do not come to Acro Yoga to workout, they come to play and it is this sense of fun that allows them to enjoy pushing their bodies to new levels of physical exertion, coordination and finesse.

Design Challenge

The poses were originally meant to work a vertical format, using Como ACRO as a bottom element for the illustrations to rest on top of.  One of the revision requests was to replace the COMO Acro text with the circular COMO Acro logo. This made the logo and certain of the poses compete for scale on the vertical format. To solve this, I decided to go with a horizontal format as well and the background text was masked in the area around the logo to make it part of the design.

FINAL DESIGN

I chose a simplified illustrative style to convey both information and playfulness. Two of the four possible cards show simple, beginner level poses. A counter-balancing pose was chosen for the 3rd card to show that Acro-Yoga is not always about one person lying on their back and the other being supported above them. The 4th pose shows the kind of graceful movement that those who stick with Acro-Yoga can aspire to do.