Citadel needed a way to impressively introduce its new line of checking accounts aptly named the STAR family. And everyone knows, if you’re looking for a real star, you’re going to find it in Hollywood. I had a general concept in mind for the poster that included replacing the famous ‘Hollywood’ sign with the Citadel logo, using a red carpet and throwing the whole thing up in lights.

1. Concept

A Hollywood premiere for something quite commonly very un-Hollywood. That was the approach to introducing a new product line and creating some “sizzle ” for the brand. I found a great stock illustration at iStock to start my design and then did a nice pencil drawing to get the basic layout and think through some of the major elements.

Pencil sketch detail of the Hollywood sign being replaced the Citadel logo.

Colored in detail of the new Citadel sign.

2. Mock Up

I like to use a sketch to get the layout and afterward quickly put some color in to get a feel for the entire look. In this project, I scanned in the original sketch and used Photoshop to add the color on a separate layer. I used a watercolor brush to keep the same raw feel of the sketch.

Side-by-side view of the original pencil sketch and the colored version.

3. Final

After I had the final colored version of the layout, some minor adjustments were made to the copy and concept. The headline was changed and the number of elements in the middle was reduced to three. Also, a collage of electronic items was added to the bottom to show some of the swag they were giving away in announcing the new accounts. I recreated the Hollywood sign in Illustrator using the 3D Extrude and Bevel combined with a warp effect to get a vector version to use  in the final rendering.

Detailed view of the Citadel sign from the completed poster.

4. Conclusion

The poster has been cleaned up and completely rendered out in Illustrator and then transferred over to Photoshop to add the finishing touches.

The Citadel Star Checking accounts were very successful in aqcuiring new accounts thanks  to the buzz created from these great posters. The design was printed in several formats and the layout altered slightly depending on the situation.