portfolio & design blog of logo & identity designer, Graham Smith
Thank’s to Wink Design for sending me a snapshot of my advert in the latest edition of Design Week.
I purposefully waited until the last day to submit my artwork, much to the frustration of my rep. I asked him to show me the artwork for the other adverts that would be printed up with mine, on this double page spread. I wanted to make a call as to how to make mine ‘stand out’ over the other adverts.
As predicted, most went full colour, so was easy for me to keep my advert clean and minimal. Strong focus on white space and my wordmark. Nothing special design wise, just clean and practical.
Print and magazines over internet
All well and good having work come through via Google and other social media avenues, but I really want to make an impact with my logo and identity design on home grown soil. Would like to reach other agencies within England, so one way to achieve this is to use the solid medium of print.
The initial outlay for these types of adverts can seem quite high, easily three figures. The thing to remember is that there is a different audience that you can reach through printed mediums, but it also helps cement your existing reputation and reach. It can look like you are willing to really put yourself out there. That you are prepared to pay good money to find new work and reach new eyes, rather than just rely on the convenience of internet advertising and marketing. Some clients can appreciate this way of thinking.
It’s not something I can afford to do monthly, but I will certainly look to buy a few slots like the one above during the year.
Top 100 Freelancers
As well as being in latest edition of Design Week, the advert is featured in the Top 100 Freelancers supplement, which is a yearly publication.
Nice to see it in print.
Categories: My Views
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Nice bit of promotion – hope it works for you – also nice when friends spot you in the press !! :-)
It's very eye-fetching. The clean, simple, off-set type makes you read it. We're on so much image-overload that anything varying from that makes me stand up and pay attention.
To be honest, totally forgot about the ad placement until I was told on Twitter. :)
This was totally my thinking, and generally always is when I design. Ironic that what will now get peoples attention will be 'white space' opposed to pretty colours and images.
Happy to be of service! I’d be interested to know what response you get from the ad, by the way…
Mich – wink-design.co.uk
I'd be interested in the number of contacts you get directly from this advert Graham, do you ask new enquiries how they heard about you?
Just wondering how you would go about measuring response to this kind of advertising? Very good for getting yourself seen in other media though and like your technique for finding out what other adverts would be around yours.
On my online form, I ask how people found me. So this is a reasonably good way of finding out how people found me. I am not expecting a huge amount of work from this ad, it's more about spreading awareness of what I do. In the hope people will remember me when they do need work done. :)
Im with Donnie on this one.
I think that the use of white space in the advert draws people to it, and the decision to delay submitting your artwork has definately worked. When im looking through magazines, whether they are design related or not, I always notice the ads which are slightly different.
Some people need to remember that not all space needs to be filled.
What is interesting is that in this case, the design is certainly not jaw dropping, but as you say, the white space begs to be looked at. Irony?