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161Chapter 11: Creating Print Ads

Designing every ad to advance your brand

Small businesses have small budgets to start with. Don’t reduce the impact of
your investment by changing the look of your ads from season to season or,
worse, from week to week. Here are some ways to advance your brand:

ߜ Find an ad look and stick with it. Settle on a recognizable format that
readers can link to your name and brand. Not only will a consistent ad
design gain you marketplace awareness and impact, it also will save time
and money by eliminating the need to redesign every new ad.

ߜ Prominently present your name. Huge advertisers can get away with
postage-stamp-sized presentations of their logos because their products
and ad looks are so familiar. Small business budgets don’t allow for that
level of awareness, so make your name apparent in every ad.

ߜ When in doubt, leave it out. This adage is good advice for do-it-yourself
ad designers (and all other designers, too). As you consider tossing in
an additional type font, different type size, ornamental border, or any
other design element, remind yourself that good design is usually the
result of subtraction — not addition.

Translating ad production terminology

Even if you pay the pros to produce your ads, it still helps to know the lan-
guage of print ad design and production:

ߜ Ad proof: This is the checking copy of your ad and the last thing you’ll
see before the presses run. When you review ad proofs, look closely at
type set in all capital letters, which is where many typos slip through.
Read your phone number twice and doublecheck your address. See that
mandatory information (copyright lines, trademarks, photo credits, and
so on) is in place. Then hand the proof to the best proofreader in your
organization for a second review before you initial your approval.

ߜ Display advertising: Print ads that combine a headline, copy, art ele-
ments, and the advertiser’s logo in a unique design are called display
ads. All-word ads are called classified or directory ads.

ߜ Four-color: This is the term for the process used to achieve full-color
printing, because (flash back to second-grade art class) all colors can
be created from the primary colors of blue, red, and yellow (or, in print
terms, cyan, magenta, and yellow). The most elaborate photo can be
separated into these three colors and then reproduced by laying one ink
color over the next until the image is rebuilt to match the original. Black
(the fourth “color”) is used for type and other details.

ߜ Spot color: This is color used to highlight an otherwise black and
white ad.