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:
- Create a mood board to establish a theme.
- Be selective in a color scheme and font.
- 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:
- Be specific.
- Be concise and have a clear call to action.
- Heather also suggested sticking to the 9th-grade reading level. There is a tool to screen will screen reading level grades for you.
- 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.
