How do you substitute Starburst?

[Crimson]

I design for autoparts company. Sales people, as you know, are pretty crazy about Starburst (puke). I try to work a good design everytime possible but sometimes they are just dead set that it won't grab attention with out a red hot starburst. Yet I have to still please the customer. I try to throw as much creativity at it as much as possible. A twirl and perspective shift go so far but it's still a starburst. Any creative solutions to please a customer by not always giving them a starburst. I appreciate my typography but they always see white space as a missed opportunity to show more product. I sometimes have to resort to photoshoped, heavy filtered effects and more drop shadows than you can shake a stick at. I do good and I think they see my design as a fresh. I am afraid after a few years of overfiltering and Cheesy starbursting, I will become another cookie cutter. Talk amongst yourselves.

Crimson

[Vikia]

I know what you are saying and empathize. Everything everywhere competing for attention and no place for your eye to get a breather. I have had to deal with that on furniture store ads. Most irritating is that consumers do in fact respond to overcrowded ads of this type. So even though it is cheesy, it works. This is an important thing not to lose sight of in the quest for better design.

When your ad is filled to the edges with ink, the brightest white object will get attention first. Maybe make a trail of small bright shapes (even little stars) leading to the main focus item to capture attention or to help lead the eye around the ad to the next focus etc.

[defjoe]

it's a losing battle my friend. creativity and automotive does not go well together. it's the nature of the beast.

[D-Zine]

Amen to that Joe - *sigh*

no, make that a DOUBLE *sigh* because I feel your pain Crimson!

[Broacher]

Ohhh.... I thought we were talking about candy-free diets here. Ah well.

>>creativity and automotive does not go well together. it's the nature of the beast<<

More accurately.... it's the nature of the automotive parts and dealership beast. You can't say that the manufacturers themselves are creative avertive-- not if you add up all the awards their ads scoop. It's a shame that creativity doesn't extend all the way down the line.

Hm... maybe this is a good example of what happens when price becomes the only competitive factor-- a parable for graphic designers?

[Keyare]

Use a gear instead. lol

[morea]

that's some great cog-nitive thinking there, Keyare! :p

[morea]

^ oh come on, that was GOOD!!! :D

[keith1]

The company I work for used to have me make starbursts, (aftermarket automotive supplier) but we have moved away from that for the most part with some convincing from myself. Now if I could get them to see the white space as a good thing instead of, "um keith can you put, We Won't Be Undersold!! there or how about a crappy picture from an employees car that he took with his 1 megapixel camera that he got for free from a cracker jack box taken in his driveway with the sunlight over exposing half the car so you can't see it, how does that sound, could you do that keith?" I can but do I want to is the question.

[Ghastly]

your witty post has not gone totally un recognised Morea :D

[morea]

LMAO @ Ghastly!

thank you, thank you. Yours didn't get by incognito, either!

[Patrick Shannon]

You honestly want to know something? Starbursts are the one thing I really haven't had to do to a huge degree, although adding a starburst to a flyer was my very, very first project when I got here to this hellhole. What I use as a substitute is an oval. Granted, they may become the new "starburst" someday, but they're so much more easier to incorporate into design and make it visually appeasing.

[Ghastly]

gimme a while to cogitate on other ways to use the word cog....doh :confused:

[Keyare]

I used to buy starbursts in packs of 25. Then when I started doing newspaper ads for auto dealers I had to get packs of 50 or more and it got outta hand. But those days are over. I can't afford them anymore unless the client REALLY needs it, then I pass the cost along to them. I mark it up a bit, to $25 per starburst.

The licensing fees are killer. I get them from the source, the Aztec Nation, who first came up with the starburst over 2000 years ago and have never gotten their fair share of royalties from their material.

We don't want to go pirating starbursts now do we? I know some designers who do. Bad, bad designers.

[Ghastly]

When I have finished inventing my time machine I swear I'm gonna throttle the Aztec guy who dreamt up that idea :eek:

[morea]

gimme a while to cogitate on other ways to use the word cog....doh :confused:

lol, I can't think of any more either ;)

[D-Frag]

I hear ya, im doing contract work for an ad agency right now, and they do a TON of automotive stuff, and I also hate the fact that every square inch of the piece has to have type on it. I just did a kickass ad yesterday, only to have the senior designer come into the office and say... "Oh, no, they won't like that. Take out the black, move that image up their, and cover the bottom in sports related clip art" I almost threw up, but not before looking her up and down with the notion of "Hasn't anyone mentioned to this client that this art is very bad?"

Im the firm believer that the only way around NOT using a starburst, is to add a swoosh.

[D-Zine]

LOL @ D-Frag!! Its funny to get ad copy from the auto dealers bc they will draw ugly little starbursts around what they want in them. Do I put them in? No. Someone ends up adding them but hey, atleast I did my part and didn't add them!

Also - red and yellow are the worst! My boss is set on the idea that red and yellow sells *hurls* He's all "Look at McDonalds, look at "Wendys" *hurls*