ROLE
A treatment is the document that a director shows a prospective agency or client in order to “sell” their vision. As a designer, there are a few key steps to building a treatment:
Visual research, in the form of snapping film stills, editing gifs and locating other material around the web.
Putting together the imagery in a captivating format that reflects the copy and director’s personal style.
Viewing and understanding of creative vision from client (in this case, Genesis Motors)
Approval of all images and GIFs by the director and EP for use in the treatment (I use PicDrop for this)
Publishing a document online, using InDesign (at this point, I am an InDesign wizard.)
Editing images and videos using AI tools to match brand copy/identity
These projects require a quick turnaround time! I only ever get two to three days to work on these, and the documents themselves are typically around 35-50 pages. So a lot of imagery is required, and constant communication between me and the director/EP is a must.
This treatment was for an ad campaign with Genesis Motors. The idea was for a scavenger hunt to happen in Los Angeles, and players had the chance to win a Genesis coupe if they decoded the password/order from a hole-in-the-wall type of restaurant.
Our aim with this treatment was to create something fun, edgy, and uniquely playful.
Treatments contain sensitive IP from directors and their clients, so I am only able to show you my work after I have latinzed the body copy. They're also typically very long documents, so I have curated the most defining pages in terms of look and feel for you.
Objectives for this specific ad treatment:
Translate the vague "fun, edgy but playful" copy into a distinct visual system
Provide specific, curated visual references; film stills, GIFs, and found imagery the director could pull from and riff on, rather than starting from a blank page
Balance a high volume of visual research with a cohesive point of view, so the deck read as one creative vision rather than a mood board grab-bag
Outcome of this Treatment:
Genesis came to the table with the scavenger hunt idea. I built out the visual direction for the director's specific take on it, and she won the pitch. Genesis ended up not moving forward with the campaign, not because of the creative, but because the angle didn't fit where their brand priorities were at the time.
This treatment became part of the portfolio that got me staffed on Mercedes-Benz work at AYR.
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