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Tips for Designing Ads

Decisions to Make Before Designing the Ad

  • What do you want it to accomplish?
  • What main message do you want to convey? Secondary message?
  • Who are you targeting?
  • How do you want people to respond? What do you want them to do?

Overall Design

  • Good ads contain one element designed to catch people's attention--a picture, perhaps, or a few very large words. Let one element dominate the ad, with enough room for everything else. An alternative: one dominant visual and several accompanying, but smaller, visuals.
  • White space can be the dominant element. When surrounded by densely-packed ads, a roomy ad with plenty of white space will stand out.
  • Make ads easy to recognize. Ads that are distinctive, that look different from typical ads, get higher readership.
  • Use a simple layout.

  • Five Parts
    of an Ad

    1. Headline.
    2. Illustration (a drawing or photo).
    3. Subheadings.
    4. Main text.
    5. Signature (your church's name, address, phone number, logo.).

    Don't make ads too crowded. Leave plenty of white space. That makes it more inviting. Don't think you must fill every space with information just because you're paying for it. In a newspaper, print covers most of the pages, so any white space will actually stand out simply because it's blank.
  • Let your church name and, if you have one, logo serve as a "signature" at the end of the ad. The "end" is the last place where the ad's natural flow takes the reader (usually the bottom right corner, but not necessarily).

Graphics

  • Illustrations or photos increase readership. But they don't work in all types of ads.
  • If your photo or illustration doesn't have any punch to it, don't use it. Why waste the space? Skip it, or find a substitute.
  • Small ads require borders to separate them from other small ads.
  • Don't use small, intricate images. They don't reproduce well, and people won't be able to make out the details (or won't make the effort).

Text

  • Reversed type can be an attention-getter. But use it with only a few words.
  • Don't include too much information in the ad. Be concise, but complete.
  • Not all information in the ad is of equal importance, so don't let it all look equal. Use different typestyles, different sizes of type, different placement, to emphasize the information which needs to be emphasized.
  • Make sure you include your name. We've all seen interesting TV commercials which we remember--except we can't remember the advertiser.
  • Always include your address and phone number. You might also include a line describing where you're located--"One mile west of the Park River Mall on Jefferson Street." And a simple map, if you have room, is great.