6 awesome uses of autumn imagery in design

It’s official: summer is now over, and the season that some of us call Fall, others autumn, is now upon us. 

Brands like to reflect the spirit of the moment, and autumnal imagery of falling leaves and changing colours offers an easy way for designers to get on message. These inspired examples all capture the magic and mystique of the season in ways that set the mood appropriately. 

Have you spotted other admirable autumnal designs in the wild? Please share them with us in the comments section below. 

01. Charles Voegele 

German agency Viaframe have a longstanding relationship with Swiss fashion store Charles Vögele, and they created this stunning scene to promote its autumn advertising campaign campaign across 800 stores throughout Europe. There are five scenes in the series, each digitally recreating a different animal using leaves, rain and clouds and placing them in different autumn landscapes. You can see the rest of the series, and how it appeared at point of sale, here. 

02. Absolut Vodka

Absolut Vodka never ceases to push the envelope when it comes to its attention-grabbing advertising, and here’s another great example. With a folksy, handcrafted feel, this magazine and newspaper campaign beautifully packs in every autumn cliche you can think of, from harvest to Halloween, falling leaves to pumpkins. 

• How to use stock photography creatively within your design work

03. Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut Cornflakes

Kellogg’s Crunchy Nut Cornflakes has good reason to advertise in autumn: it’s the season in which consumers tend to go off the idea of cold cereal in favour of a more warming breakfast. So this campaign from ad agency JWT London pulled out all the stops. The image above isn’t Photoshopped as you might think: instead JWT commissioned pavement artist Jon Hicks to draw large Kellogg’s bowls on London’s streets, and sweep the autumn leaves into them to represent the breakfast cereal. 

04. Hermes 

People may buy their coats in autumn, but they want them to last through winter. This print ad for high fashion French firm Hermès shows they understand that perfectly. In the slightly surreal scene, model Bette Franke leaps across a flurry of autumn leaves and into the depths of the frozen season. Shot by Nathaniel Goldberg, it all adds up to a magical slice of image manipulation that recalls the film Notting Hill’s famous ‘changing seasons’ sequence.

05. Stihl Handheld Blowers

Stihl AG & Company is a German manufacturer of handheld power equipment, including leaf blowers. This business gift promotes this line in a fun way: it’s a calendar where each day is a leaf that you tear off. It was created by Havas Worldwide, formerly known as Euro RSCG. 

06. Perri Alley Spring

You’ve got to love macro photography, and this print ad for Perri Alley (a brand of pure cotton shirts with no synthetic mix) gets up close and personal with a single leaf to great effect. This award-winning campaign was created by Indian agency One Point Size using a shot taken by Sharad Haksar.