Category: Communication Design 1

Kimber Grenier, Senior Graphic Designer; Heather Laura Clarke, Contents Solutions Editor; and Angie Reid, Manager at Audience Marketing (B2B), discussed effective ad designs for print and digital mediums.

Angie began by describing what the session was going to cover which included, Basic Design 101, Copywriting Tips, Technical Tips and Useful Tools.

Basic Design 101: 

Kimber kicked off the portion by describing what makes an ad effective and successful. The first part was discussing “white space”. White space is the area between design and elements. White space can be any texture, color and pattern. It can be used to hold attention to the ad. It can hold up to 20% additional reader attention. Also can be used to create a nice esthetic. Next, an ad should have a focal point. A focal point can be a photograph, icons or color. It is directly designed to direct the eye to specific parts of your layout. The focal point determines how the eye is lead through your design. It’s important because it tells the eye where to look first, next and then “call to action”. Next, ads should be clean vs cluttered. Cluttered ads can signal mistrust in a brand and/or a message. Lastly, effective branding means that the ads can translate through all the media channels. They need to be all consistent. Consumers will begin to identify your brand. Select images that you can scale.

The last topic that Kimber discussed was ways to get started on an ad campaign:

1. Create a mood board to establish a theme.
2. Be selective in a color scheme and font.
3. Use clean and robust imagery. 

Copywriting Tips:

Heather began her presentation by stating that copywriting has four essential components. There are headlines, sub-headlines, body copy and calls to action. Headlines are often attributed to news articles, but Heather mentions that headlines are necessary for making the copy compelling. Headlines need to be compelling to attract the consumer. She provided an example. Not good: “We offer mortgages” vs “Do you need a mortgage?”. Subheadings don’t actually appear on small ads but can appear on a full-page ad. Next, she highlighted that copy needs to have calls to action. Calls to action need to have an element that makes the reader want to continue. It should also contain very clear and directive verbiage such as; buy, call, visit, order, ask, learn, join, book, reserve. It should be the last thing the consumer reads to create a follow-up action. Heather finished with generic copywriting tips:

1. Be specific.
2. Be concise and have a clear call to action. 
3. Heather also suggested sticking to the 9th-grade reading level. There is a tool to screen will screen reading level grades for you.
4. Use professional fonts. 

The seminar concluded with a few useful tools and programs that would help anyone get started in advertising, such as Canva and Adobe Illustrator. Overall the seminar was helpful in getting started with creating ads. It was beneficial to learn more about copy and how to grab the attention of a consumer. 

Dodge Ram for the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr’s death airs a commercial during the Super Bowl featuring the sermon delivered by Dr. King known as The Drum Major Instinct. I found the commercial to be tone death and ineffective.

There’s a lot of emotion and racial tension in this country that made this move extremely risky. The sermon which I attached below touches on the danger of overspending on items like cars. Not enough research was conducted by Dodge before releasing the ad. It was like if they’re not aware of what is occurring in the real world. NFL already had tarnished their relationship with the minority community by reprimanding players who express their political stance on what is occurring with society. Using MLK speech to advertise their trucks did not align with what MLK preached. It is tone deaf and appears an attempt to exploit black culture.

Reading Ms. Neitfield experience of working at Google is horrible. It also reminds me of the cruel truth of the rat race in modern society. We’re conditioned to excel in school to land a great job upon completion. Fortune 500 companies become the ideal workplaces due to the security and promise they have for your career. Tech companies pitch themselves to be the ideal workplace making employees feel extremely comfortable, offering endless amenities, which, in my opinion, is never to make you stop working. It becomes really easy to detach yourself from the outside world as Ms. Neitfield stated she would go to the google gym, google doctor, the extracurricular activities she would attend would be with coworkers. This environment which on a micro level seems like fun, on a macro level, is toxic. Which I believe is what leads to Google’s poor handling of the harassment issue Ms. Neitfiel brought to H.R.’s attention. Corporations ultimately care about keeping shareholders happy. Harassment reported gets interpreted as you are not falling in line and are not connecting with the culture that is being perpetuated. I believe harassment in the workplace is extremely common in however they do not get reported due to fear of being retaliated against. enduring abuse at a workplace is not acceptable on any level. However, nobody wants to be labeled a black sheep or get passed up for a promotion. I strongly believe in following your passion and staying true to yourself. Corporations have no remorse and are able to replace employees that they feel do not bring value very quickly.

Emi’s upbringing contributed to her drive and enabled her to endure the harassment for as long as it went. Growing up without a family makes you want to be part of a family which is the environment Google was offering. I hope google as a corporation handles H.R. issues responsibly. Google’s mottos is “Do the right thing” therefore, they should abide to their corporate code.