newspaper advertisment

[datswhutsup]

Hi,

i was curious to know if there are any websites or information on the web about well designed newspaper advertisments. i am trying to design a couple newspaper advertisments for my portfolio aiming towards this interview I have very soon.

(i picked up a few local newspaper, and looking at the advertisments very closely, to see what I like about them, and why I think they are or aren't effective.)

any help would be much appreciated. thank you

[Riya]

IMHO, well designed, effective newspaper ads are a very rare occurance. I would try looking at effective magazine ads, billboards, etc. for inspiration(no copying though), then adapt whatever concept you come up with for newspaper.

[nyc_skater]

Hi,

i was curious to know if there are any websites or information on the web about well designed newspaper advertisments. i am trying to design a couple newspaper advertisments for my portfolio aiming towards this interview I have very soon.

(i picked up a few local newspaper, and looking at the advertisments very closely, to see what I like about them, and why I think they are or aren't effective.)

any help would be much appreciated. thank you

I design for newspaper ads often, each paper and ad is very different. Open the first few pages of the NY times on a sunday morning and you'll see lots of minimal expensive watch ads, open the ny post and you might see something very different.

IMHO, there's more to just the ad itself when it comes to newspapers, it's the frequency, placement, lifespan as well.

What have you found out so far from looking at any of the ads you've found, I'm curious.

[Ned]

The Guerrilla Marketing Handbook has a few good rules for effective newspaper advertisements. But these are aimed strictly at effective communication, and may not help the look of your portfolio. You have to be able to sell the effectiveness of the concept to your client, as those who are untrained in marketing communications may not pick up on it.

[datswhutsup]

well from what i noticed in a few different newspaper ads, is 1. the percent signs are reduced smaller than the point size of the number, for instance 50% is all the same point size. and the word "OFF" is usually the same size too. This is different than magazine ads and catalogs, where the percentage sign and commas are keys that aren't letters or numbers are often reduced. 2. It was very hard to try to find a baseline grid, and the same leading throughout text in newspaper ads, I'm guessing because of the space and too much information to design in the little amount of space. 3. a lot of different typefaces, atleast 3 or more, i guess since most newspaper ads are black and white, different type faces are thicker/stronger than other, letting 2 different typefaces at the same size play with hierarchy and whats more important and bolder than other type.

this is off the top of my head at the moment.

thanks for all the input.

[Ned]

Yeah, that's all "hype" marketing, not necessarily good design. ;)

I would stray away from the excess of typefaces (a few fonts is alright, but not typefaces), and keep consistent leading. Newspaper ads don't tend to care about grids, that's true, but you would do good to.

As far as the emphasis on the numbers and "OFF", that's all good marketing. Your clients will expect to see that, and that is all good. The other bad design elements of many newspaper ads, I would learn what NOT to do from, rather than what to do. Good design will make your ad stand out in a subtle way. The untrained eye will not know why they prefer your ad, they just will.

PS, newspaper ads are a large portion of my income, and I do pride myself on raising the standard.

[Pica]

I spend the majority of my 40 hours a week designing newspaper ads so here are my two cents:

Use lighter drop shadows than you would use in designs for other kinds of printing. I tend to stick around 55-60% transparency on drop shadows because of ink smearing. Also make sure that you only use C, M and Y in your colors and no K (and use 0/0/0/100 for your black). Mixing black into your colors will make them appear muddy and dull when printed and using rich black may cause color halos around your type or images.

Say adios to whitespace and howdy to starbursts. Sure there are exceptions, but most local newspaper advertisers will want to cram as much info as they can into an ad. If they see too much whitespace, they'll send you more copy. Use good typography and simple layouts to organize the ad. Avoid starbursts when you can by using good typography or starburst alternatives (ovals, corner triangles, etc.), but realize that some people just won't be happy unless they've got that starburst on there.

[Ned]

Everything Pica says is true...

Also, for continuous tone Greyscale ads, make them very light. In fact, all ads will need to be lightened (due to the darkness of newsprint), but especially greyscale.

And use a dot gain of 26% or 30%.

But that's all for actually printing the ads... If it's just for your portfolio, it doesn't matter much.

[Jackimalyn]

check out the NY Times- best newspaper ads in there. Its one of the only places ive seen good spot ads too.