24 May 4 Tips to Effective Print Advertising Design

4 Tips to Effective Print Advertising Design

Advertising in printed magazines can be very effective. But there’s a real art to creating the most effective print advertising design and to making an ad that stands out from the crowd. As you flick through any B2B trade publication, they’re packed with advertisements all competing for the reader’s eye – so understanding the fundamentals of how to create an advert that is enticing, readable and meaningful for the reader is incredibly important.

So here’s 4 tips to creating that stand-out advertisement.

Use a Simple Layout
It’s common sense really. Busy, cluttered advertisements are a turn off to readers as the eye finds it difficult to find purchase. Simple layouts reflect simple to understand and concise messages and catch the reader’s eye more easily, which is the first goal of any advertisement.

Use Clear Copy
Again, large blocks of copy can be a disincentive to read. Using smaller blocks of copy with bullet points and indentations encourage the reader to start reading and make the information more digestible. There’s also plenty of evidence that readers find serif fonts around 4 times easier to read than san-serif fonts on the printed page. Also, be mindful of the relationship of the copy with any graphics – beware of placing text over busy images as this can render the text illegible.

Logical Ad Flow
The eye naturally starts at a page from top left and moves towards the bottom right. The most effective advertisements help this journey by laying out text along the eye’s natural ‘route’ across the page. To aid the reader’s journey (and therefore improving the effectiveness of your ad) bear this in mind when laying out the text – ensure the reader doesn’t have to fight against the flow.

Highlight the Benefits
Continually focus on the benefits that your customer will get from your product/service. It’s very easy to stray away from the benefits but this is the only reason your customer should bother to read your advert. And keep the message simple without technical jargon – it can be staggering how few people understand jargon words you take for granted. And that includes your target customers.

This ad ticks all the boxes

Getting a process in place that helps you adhere to all these principles is an important step to making sure you’re starting your advertisement on the right foot. And if you do, you should be well on the way to creating a very effective print advertising design project.