Sun glasses ads theme

You’re going backward. Even with all its problems, your first attempt was better.

The background is garish and still composed of colors that will surely disappoint you the first time you see it in print. Your background should add subtle texture and/or suggest a location. This does neither. Look at Just-B’s example; that guy is standing in an old-world Italian setting. Or is he? Does it matter? No, but yes. Where is your model? In front of a non-existent wall that’s painted like no wall ever has been?

The focal point of your new layout is . . . nothing. Those sunglasses you added aren’t worthy of anything; clearly just a token move on your part. There’s no branding here and nothing of interest; nothing to make me feel, think, or act in any way at all.

A magazine ad never shows pricing, unless perhaps the magazine’s circulation is limited to a single small town, or the ad is designed expressly as a draw to a single retail location. The white rectangle was simply a terrible decision.

Type is for reading, not decorating. I would have hoped your second attempt might include smarter typography and a better font choice. You must resist the tendency to choose fonts for their novelty alone. Sunglasses are fashion, and that font is chunky, unbalanced, juvenile, obnoxious, and frankly, hideous. Again look at Just-B’s example; boring-ass typefaces used to great effect — clean, sophisticated, unobtrusive and so readable your eyes don’t even have to move to know what it says.