Hello, I’m a beginner looking for critique on a fake flyer I made on the topic of a driving school. I made 2 versions. I’ll be posting often since I’m serious on improving, hope that’s okay.
I tried my best to make adjustments based on feedback from my previous post. I practiced my hierarchy and looked at how other people employed hierarchy. I also tried to use fonts that give off a more premium feel which is minerva modern and roboto slab, and I changed the house image into one that gives off more luxury.
On the car flyers, format the text so you don’t have to use hyphenation. Hyphenation is okay for books and magazine articles, but on a one-page ad it shows you didn’t work through the problem.
The picture of the science fiction car might be appropriate if this is for a performance driving school. You’re implying that the lessons are for owners of cars like this. That’s going to be a very small target audience. IRL, you would ask the driving school about the demographics of their target clients, and orient the design to those people. This looks like you are designing for yourself and not the client.
The flyers look nice. Everything is lined up, and the hierarchy is fine. There are a few things I might have done differently, but at some point, those things boil down to personal preferences. They look great. You even used an en dash to separate 12PM and 4PM, which would put a smile on any copy editor’s face.
However (there’s always a however ), there’s more to design than looks. For example, @Mojo mentioned the car. He’s right; a basic driving school wouldn’t involve a Lamborgini or a Batmobile racing through the burning fires of Hell. Instead, those lessons would more likely take place in a 2012 Chevrolet Sonic traveling well under the speed limit in light traffic.
It’s often great to add a little spice and excitement to an ad, but not at the expense of sending the wrong message. Basic driving courses are about learning the basics of driving safely, learning the rules of the road, and passing a driver’s exam. Sending the right message is extremely important.
One other small thing; it’s been a long time since a luxury house in California would sell for $825,000.
Thank you for your response! If you have the time, I would appreciate to know what design choices you would’ve done differently as I my ultimate goal is to make designs that are professional.
Drive Flier One – I see that you are making an effort, so I can applaud that. You have done a better job with hierarchy that the first flier you posted, so it seems you’ve learned something. I think “Learn to Drive with Confidence” would be more on-point for the headline. Saying “drive with confidence” could apply to tires, brakes, insurance, headlights, etc. I’m not crazy about the peach color, but that could be personal preference. I’m guessing you did the peach background as a tint of the CTA button. Is a Mercedes representative of the car students will be driving? Also, do a search for stock photos of cars on legit stock sites. You’ll see they are either cropped so the car’s branding doesn’t show or they are retouched to eliminate the cars branding. If you see a stock photo with a car’s branding, it will be flagged as being for editorial use only. There are legal issues with showing a car’s branding for marketing. This next thing is personal preference for sure. I don’t like the font Eras. Never have. Never will. I don’t think the cones are needed. They are superfluous elements to my eye. Lastly, the whole thing comes across as generic because it’s missing the branding of the driving school. For something like this, I’d expect to see the logo of the driving school and elements to tie in with the school’s branding. I apologize if this all comes across as harsh. It’s not meant that way. I get the sense that you are trying, so I am willing to offer my advice.
Drive Flier Two – As @Mojo and @Just-B have pointed out, the art for this is not appropriate.
Open House Flier – The font choice is an improvement over your previous version. Good job. You have a lot more space under “Open House” than above. That would need to be balanced out. I’d make “Asking Price” the same size as the address; you can leave the actual price larger. Capitalize W on “walk-on closet” or add “with” after “Large primary suite.” Consider moving the open house date and time to underneath “Open House” — or maybe swap the placement of the date and time with the asking price. I don’t mind black and white for an upscale market, but, as with the drive flier, this comes across as pretty generic and lacking credibility since you don’t have any branding for the real estate agency.
Several years ago, I talked with someone who told me their company had run a national ad with a BMW motorcycle in the background. He said they received a cease-and-desist letter from BMW even though BMW’s logo wasn’t visible. BMW claimed the motorcycle’s unique design was copyrighted. I don’t know how that argument would stand up in court.
Many years ago when I was a young pup in the business, I did a lot of automotive related work. This was way before microstock agencies, back when you had to call a stock agency and they would send you film to scan (man, I am old). Anyway, I was wanting to get a full shot of a car, and that’s where I learned about the legal issues with cars used in third party marketing.
Wow, Steve! You had microstock agencies?! For the first 27 years of my career, I didn’t even have a computer! (Ha, ha! It would be funnier if it weren’t true!)