Page 101 - 100 Great Copywriting Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

44 FORGET IMPACT, GO FOR
UNDERSTANDING

There’s a real temptation when designing press ads (or briefing
them) to go for high impact designs. Brightly colored headlines, eye-
catching illustrations or photography, unusual typefaces or layouts.
Yet only one of these will do anything to increase the proportion of
people stopping at your ad who can actually understand it. Want to
have a guess which one?

If you plumped for the illustrations, well done. Everything else,
while full of impact, decreases comprehension of the body copy.
Next time you’re reading a newspaper or magazine, compare the
look of the editorial matter to the advertising. Notice the difference.
Unless it’s a very trendy new magazine aimed at sk8er boyz and
girlz (or something similar), the editorial is mostly set in black type
(usually a serif typeface) on a white ground. Not so the ads. Hmmm.
I wonder why.

The idea

From Colin Wheildon, the only man ever to have researched
and made public the scientific relationship between design and
comprehension
That’s some build-up, huh? But it happens to be true. Wheildon,
a journalist and son of a typesetter, set out to research the effects
of different typefaces and layouts on reader comprehension.
Wheildon’s book is called, in its latest edition, Type & Layout: Are you
Communicating or Just Making Pretty Shapes?. Buy it. You won’t be
disappointed. (Your designer might be.)

92 • 100 GREAT COPYWRITING IDEAS