ADVERTISING AND PROMOTIONAL DESIGN
Everything you want to print requires specific, slightly different specifications and requirements; the right colour format, the right margins, the right document formats. To the untrained or inexperienced eye, this can seem very complicated. But we are neither. We’ve been doing this for years. Our knowledge and our experience will help you create striking, compelling press design that will set you apart from the crowd. To survive, customer attraction is crucial, and direct mail, posters, point of purchase displays, billboards, signage and so much more is so important to achieve this. We can provide all of it. Whatever your advertising need, we can help your reach a creative and eye-catching solution.
WE GET SENT ALL KINDS OF ADVERT BRIEFS
From large-scale ATL advertising campaigns, to local flower show posters, we have experience in all kinds of advertising. Whatever the brief, budget or audience, we know how to create compelling advert designs for all businesses and campaigns. When a brief crosses our desk, we understand that each individual design requires a specific set of specifications and guidelines. Getting these right demands experience and knowledge, and we have plenty of both.
ADVERTISE TO YOUR AUDIENCE
You sell to the customer, and you live and die by maintaining their custom. Don’t get caught up in the trap of ‘my wife’s neighbour’s postman’s dog doesn’t like it’. Design for the audience you want to buy your products or use your services. Be specific about who you want to reach, and communicate to them directly. We listen to our clients and ascertain what audience and customer base they are trying to reach and we can tailor-fit our advert design and campaigns for your company and market.
MESSAGE
Style over substance is the old adage you want to avoid at all costs. You want your design to be attractive, engaging, and eye-catching, but you also need to have a powerful message. Getting the balance right can be difficult. We have the knowledge and experience necessary to help you create a beautiful design with a message to back it up.
BRIEF
When sending over a brief to your designer, the motto to live by is: ‘You will always get out what you put in’. Don’t send over a ten second, one line email brief if you want a comprehensive design. The designer won’t do what you don’t tell them to do; you need to lay out what you want, so the designer can make it happen. Here and there, tweaks may be made; calculated decisions to make your advert even better.
SCALE
Go big or go home. Print advertising is about catching the eye of the potential customer, and holding it. The larger the advert, the more leads it can generate. This larger ad will also give you the ability to include all the information you want, without compromising the design. Other than the message, the brief and the audience, one of the most crucial things is the layout. An ad that is uncluttered and clean makes it easier to read, retain and respond to. A larger ad gives you this capability.
ADVERT IMAGERY
When using imagery, ALWAYS choose strong, eye catching, relevant backgrounds. But it needs to be just that, a background. The text needs contrast to stand out. The perfect images have areas of high contrast, to allow for message placement and clarity. To catch a potential customer’s eye, a really strong image is needed, and to be able to have that, you need to be prepared to edit your content to suit it.
SOURCES
Stock image sites have become possibly the most used sources for imagery and photography. But, if you can’t find stock photos that serve your purpose or get your message across well enough, and you can’t afford a personal photographer, you can always blend stock imagery from different sources. The advert below is from three completely separate sources. (Sky, race track and walker are from different sources) ) This is where an experienced and knowledgeable designer can help you out. Calling upon their many years of scouring stock image sights, they can search through thousands of images quickly, and can instinctively know what will work to make a great composite image for your ad.
CONSISTENCY
Consistency, consistency, consistency. If a brand is all over the place, mismatched and with every piece of design unconnected from the last, the customer will be left confused and possibly unaware of future updates, as they look completely different from the brand itself. This can lead to decreased customer retention and loyalty, as they can feel unconnected from the brand, if it keeps on changing. Being ‘on brand’ makes you iconic, with every one of your customers knowing what they can expect. Now, this isn’t to say that change and evolution is off limits. They are a necessary part of business growth, but within reason. Take Apple for example. They have kept with the clean, smart and simple design standards, but have changed their voice ever-so-slightly, to be friendlier, funnier and more engaging. This was a subtle change, but they have managed to evolve, while staying consistent.
SOFTWARE AND CROSS PLATFORM USE
As one of the most prominent parts of the advert is the image background, it could seem like Photoshop is therefore the best option. It may be great for photo editing, but it isn’t so good for layouts. The designer should know which program is best for your design. They should also be working with vector files, meaning that they are fully scalable and transferable. The same advert can be 5cm x 5cm or 50m x 50m with no loss of resolution.
BILLBOARD DESIGN
Billboards are some of the most effective and efficient ways of reaching hundreds, if not thousands of potential customers. Although they may be more on the expensive side, a simple, effective and eye-catching billboard could be hugely successful. A billboard needs to be simple as a driver or pedestrian only has seconds to see it, take in the information, and react to it. A clean, clear, simple design will manage to get your message across in those seconds. With billboards, being big, loud and colourful is key. The bigger the font size, the longer the passer-by has to read it. With bright colours and bold images, they will be more eye-catching. To get this right requires knowledge and experience. We are able to provide engaging, eye-catching and compelling design solutions for all your billboard needs.
EXPERIENCED AD DESIGNERS
We pride ourselves on our experience and our knowledge gained from it. What might take us ten minutes, took us ten years to learn how to do. We pour our experience into every project we take on, and with advertising, it’s no different. A good designer always works to a hierarchy grid, so don't go messing with it! We have produced adverts for almost every size of business, in virtually any medium. From national newspapers to your local church magazine.
COMPOSITION
Less is more. In design, space should not be always be considered ‘empty’ space. This space focusses the competition and lets the design ‘breathe’. It is better to have more space than to have a design that is so overcomplicated and busy that no one can follow. The composition is key, it ultimately decides whether the customer will pursue an interaction with your brand. If it is too busy or overcomplicated, most likely the customer will not want to continue on to the transaction if they can’t understand what’s going on!
