D) Read the text once more, work in pairs and design a print advertisement for a newspaper or a magazine according to the principles given in the text.

Designing print advertisements

Because most art directors have training as graphic artists, one of their primary tasks is designing print advertisements. During the design process, an initial idea for an advertisement moves from the thumbnail stage to a piece of finished artwork that will be sent to a magazine or newspaper for reproduction or inserted in a Website. The work process of an art director in designing ads can be divided into four stages: thumbnail sketches, rough layouts, comprehensive layouts, and mechanicals or finished artwork.

Thumbnail Sketches. The design process begins with many small picture ideas for an ad, referred to as thumbnail sketches or thumbnails. These rough sketches, which can either be drawn on paper or conceptualized with a computer, allow designers to create and experiment with many design ideas before committing to a particular design approach. The best ideas are selected from among the thumbnail sketches to be redrawn as full-sized rough layouts. At this stage art directors consider the size and shape of advertisements to be produced, whether the text in an advertisement requires columns of space or simply copy blocks, how elements of the advertisement will be arranged, and what type of visuals are needed to communicate the message effectively.

There are several important design variables used by art directors to capture and direct consumer attention:

· design elements – a headline, subheads, blocks of body copy, photographs, drawings, backgrounds, coupons, logos, taglines;

· white space;

· balance;

· eye movement;

· proportion;

· color, intensity, and contrast.

White space, or the blank areas in a layout, is important for several reasons. Large areas of white space can convey richness, openness, exclusivity, or simplicity in a message. An art director may also add or remove white space in an advertisement in order to make an advertisement stand out from competing ads on a newspaper or magazine page.

The distribution of elements around an imaginary vertical line that divides a layout or advertisement into two equal halves is known as balance. Designers and artists refer to balancing the weight of objects on either side of this vertical axis.

There are some rules:

· an irregular shape has more weight than a regular shape;

· dark has more weight than light;

· larger elements appear heavier than smaller ones;

· a shape with texture has more weight than a smooth shape;

· color has more weight than noncolor.

The most commonly used design distinction occurs between formal and informal balance. A layout with formal balance is symmetrical; it has equal weight on each side of the vertical axis. Formal layouts are often used to represent tradition and formality. On the other hand, informal balance in a layout or advertisement occurs when there is an asymmetrical relationship between elements on each side of the vertical axis. Informal balance is often used to convey movement or excitement.

Eye movement refers to the sequential processing of information by readers. Art directors can influence how readers process the information in a layout or advertisement. They use lines, shapes, or characteristics of visuals to direct the reader’s eye in the advertisement. Art directors are intuitively aware of the optical center of an ad as they create their designs. This point is about two-thirds up from the bottom of the ad and slightly to the right of the vertical axis. Art directors often use objects or models to point reader to the advertising copy or to the visuals of the product.

The relationship in size between elements in an advertisement is known as proportion. The more important an element to the selling message, the more space that should be given to the element.

While an emotional headline and advertising copy can create a mood for the product, three other factors also can contribute to the mood created by a layout design: color, intensity, and contrast. Designers often associate certain colors or hues with emotional states. Reds create excitement, while browns and earth tones produce warmth. Greens connote nature and earth friendliness, while blacks build richness and sophistication. Intensity indicates the brightness or dullness of a color. Bright colors create excitement; subdued colors may suggest peacefulness. Contrast, also called value or tone, is the relative lightness or darkness of colors to one another. Contrasts in colors or in gray tones can be used to suggest differences in importance for elements in an ad.

Rough layouts.

A layout is a piece of artwork or rendering showing how advertising elements will be arranged in the final printed advertisement. Rough layouts are called rough because they often use quickly drawn illustrations to represent finished drawings or photographs; penciled-in headlines to show headline placement; and lines, squiggles, or unreadable type to represent copy. The purpose of the rough layout is to identify several different ways to communicate the advertising message effectively. One or more of the layouts will be represented as a more finished representation of the final advertisement, called a comprehensive layout.

Date: 2016-04-22; view: 608