Holly Stuart Hughes

If you read real estate ads, you know that the new must-haves in any home are stainless steel appliances. In the latest print campaign for KitchenAid dishwashers, creative director Ed Han of Publicis didn't want to show how sleek the appliances look, but rather how they can be used everyday .“What you're used to seeing in the category is all the stainless, all the surfaces,” Han says. Han came up with a list of things a mom and some kids would do together in a kitchen, often drawing from his own Saturday mornings with his daughter (who loves dinosaur-shaped pancakes.) Says Han, “We wanted to create a message where the consumer can say, ‘Yes, I want to be a part of that.’”
    Photographer Sang An, who had worked with Han on two previous Kitchen Aid campaigns, shot the still lifes of a half eaten breakfast. Han had explained that the marble counter top and other props had to look sophisticated, An says, and he chose to use a mix of daylight, strobe and HMI lights to simulate a warm and sunny kitchen. He also used rectangles of paper to map out where the lifestyle photos would be placed.
    Next, lifestyle photographer Stephanie Rausser photographed models using the story lines that Han had suggested. That included letting them play with their food, toss some flour until they were covered in it, and eat all the ingredients to make the breakfast. “Kids come alive when they can do they’re encouraged to do that kind of thing. They literally light up,” Rausser says.
    Han says he wanted both the still lifes and the lifestyle shots to look lived in, but not sentimental.   “The biggest challenge was not falling into the Hallmark trap,” he says. “We wanted it to be spontaneous and real, but also aspirational.”
 “Ed is one of the rare art director who gets involved with everything: propping, food styling, lighting, every aspect of photography,” says An. “That kind of detail makes Ed wonderful to work with.”