2015 Collection: Re-assessing a Brand

On my first day working for Alfred Angelo, I was tasked with rebranding the Disney Fairy Tale Weddings line for 2015. With no prior bridal experience, I approached it as a marketing pivot similar to a Coca-Cola product campaign. After comprehensive analysis of consumer feedback, I assessed what worked well in previous collections as well as what to avoid and enhance going forward.

Things Working For the Brand

• The official Disney license. Alfred Angelo owned the market.

• The % of "Disney brides" was trending positive, aided by Disney's “Fairy Tale Weddings and Honeymoons" division.

• The new line held promise of being something fresh & new from prior collections.

• In collaboration with Disney, advertising shoots at the park became a reality.

• · Company was introducing the popular Disney Character, Elsa, to its line-up of princesses.

1. Selling an Idea of an Image

2. Shooting an Image

Our hired photographer would then shoot our models either against a blank screen or sometimes on location for the initial shot. This working relationship between the photographer and myself lasted through all 3 years.

3. Composite the Image

Originally trying to outsource composite and retouching duties, it was determined that composite work must be kept in-house due to the extensive vetting process each concept had to go through. Talent would have had to be brought in early on to achieve the desired results. Being fully invested in concept and process, I took over all compositing and retouching duties to match my vision for each image. 

The Final Outcome

Once the imagery hit the market, it was met with great praise and appeal. Consumers reacted positively and even 3 of the collection's dresses made it into the company's global top 10, the first time in 2 years for any Disney dress.

Elsa's ad in particular stood out both socially and within market by taking home the prize of "Bridal Ad of the Year" in Paris. Overall, I believe a nice balance between Disney and Alfred Angelo was achieved.

Princess-of-the-Month Campaign

To supplement our newly relaunched brand and to engage with the "Disney" bride, the Princess-of-the-Month Campaign was created.

This campaign consisted of email blasts, sliders, and social content pertaining to each princess in order to inspire wedding ideas for your own "happily ever after."

2016 Collection: Building Better Worlds

For 2016, we learned from our mistakes and grew our concepts and compositions. My team and I scouted real-life locations around Florida and at Disney which were later photographed on site.

Visually for the 2016 ad images, I wanted bold, iconic images that would leave a lasting impression, such as Jasmine with her pet tiger and Ariel with aquatic life.

The design theme element for the 2016 gown was metallic embellishments. Each dress was beautifully adorned with beads to create an extravagant finish to the bride's princess look.

For the wholesale catalog cover, I wanted to do something a little more special to visually tie into the theme of gold embellishments. Using the Disney reference of the original classics, all beginning with the opening of the book, I designed a similar treatment for the collection.

I illustrated the cover using both jeweled and graphic references to all 9 Disney princesses. The design was then sent out for 3D rendering and final polish. The end result created a lavish story of fairytales and luxury.

Keeping with Disney traditions, there is even a hidden Mickey on the cover.

The Final Outcome

The rebranding was solidified with the second season being a collection of images atypical of bridal imagery and true to Disney storytelling. We were able to produce even more bestsellers from this collection. We learned from year 1 that it's not feasible to have only one shot for all uses across the board.

If in all of the years prior I had control of a brand, 2017 was the year that I gained full trust and was allowed to make better marketing decisions from that.

The collection was expanded to include Pocahontas and Mulan with the original 9 princesses.

For the NYC Fashion Show during bridal week, the backgrounds were motion graphics that echoed back to past and present advertising shots. As each princess walked out, so did a coordinated image creating a living advertisement based on my art direction.

One of the growing issues faced with the advertising shots over the last 2 years was the evolution of its usage between print and digital media.

As our digital presence increased and our website was redesigned, there was only so much that could be done with an image designed for a magazine spread with the model always placed compositionally to the right.

As the compositing artist, I looked at the images I was building differently and created a far larger digital set than would ever be required for any one application. This allowed for a image standard style guide to be created for all ad shots. The application allowed the campaign to offer something new visually in each digital and print medium.

Due to production issues, the 2017 collection was not going to be ready in time for market. It was decided to split the collection this year between the Fall and Spring lines in order to compensate starting with 4 and then the other 7 later. 

Conceptually going off the concept of a child's "Little Golden Book", I created our At-A-Glance catalog featuring illustrative works showcasing the creative process from sketch-product-advertising. Part 1 contained best sellers for the missing princesses and Part 2 contained the whole collection when it was available. 

The added benefit of splitting the collection was that it allowed me to better execute promotional pieces for the brand and plan future shoots more efficiently.

2018 Collection: Passing the Storytelling On

For 2018, I believed that the current look had run its course and it was time for me to step down as sole creative lead on this collection so that I could mentor my senior graphic designer to take over reigns of the Disney brand in a further collaborative role. As fate would have it, I was then put in a position where I was to take over full photographic responsibilities for the 2018 advertising collection.

The concept my design team and I came up with was to do a complete reboot, focusing on color gel photography to create a mode of sophistication.

I also pitched that Alfred Angelo work on the one brand problem yet to be resolved, making the Disney Dresses special. Instead of having 7 different Cinderella dresses in the market, have THE CINDERELLA DRESS until it becomes no longer market-valuable. The previous approach was a model that worked for regular bridal, but created the same issue with Disney gown design as the advertising design.

This concept was considered upon moving forward, but did not get out of the test shooting phase before Alfred Angelo closed its doors.