What are the layout steps of advertisement?
Layout Steps
The various steps in the layout are the progression from visualization to the final artwork, when it is ready for sending for production. The art director or the visualizer starts with the thumbnail sketches also known as idea-generation miniatures. These are simple drawings that contain an ad’s basic elements. A good layout should have the following basic elements:
Balance
Balance is a fundamental law of nature and life. Odd things stand out. Balance way is defined as a matter of weight distribution. In layout, it is related to the optical center of an advertisement. The optical center is the point, which the eye designates as the center of an area.
Proportion
Proportion is related to balance but is concerned primarily with the division of the space and the emphasis needed to be according to each element. Proportion also involves the tone of the ad, i.e. the amount of light areas in relation to the dark one and the amount of color required and the decision to avoid color.
Movement
Eyes follow a particular movement. This is the result of reading a particular kind of script early from life. Readers of western and Devanagri script are habitual of looking at the reading material from left to right and then from top to bottom. The Arabic script, in which Persian and Urdu are written, goes from right to left.
Unity
Unification of the layout is what is meant by the term unity. All the elements in the ad, must be united to be a composite whole. This is achieved when the element tie into once another by making use of the same basic shapes.
Unity can be achieved by grouping the elements, by encasing the ad in a border, by aligning one element with another or by the overlapping of elements.
Mood
Sizes, textures, colors, illustrations, and the type also contribute to create a mood for the ad. It is always ideal to choose type from one family to create the right harmony and mood. Similarly the white space will also create the appropriate mood. The two basic devices of illustrating an ad are photography and drawing.
- (a) Photography: Pictures in advertisements create a feeling of immediacy, live action, speed, empathy, association, and flexibility. And it is not a matter of coincidence that the majority of ads contain pictures. The pictures encompass a variety of subjects, like, people, animals, flowers, monuments, birds, objects, etc. These are selected on the basis of the aim of the ad. The selection of right characters is very important. Professional photography is a specialized area, and agencies generally have on their panel photographers from various fields of specialization, like fashion, nature, profiles, table top, industry, children, etc.
- (b) Drawings:Illustration is used in an ad, when visualizer feels that its impact will be more than that of a photograph. A number of techniques are used in producing drawings. In line drawing, everything is sharp, precise and in black and white without any gray tones. Cartoons are generally done as line drawings. Wash drawing is defined as an illustration, using tones and shades and can be in one or more colors. It can be both in realist or impressionist style. Fashion and furniture ads at times use this technique, as these look attractive and distinct.Color Psychology
No reference to advertising can be complete unless one speaks about color, or rather the role of color. Color adds realism, besides beauty and distinctiveness. The right blend of colors adds a dash of magic to the ad. Some scholars feel that people’s reaction to color is based on a person’s national origin and culture. Colors also have a psychology of their own and various colors depict various moods.
Typography
Typography is the art of selecting typefaces, of which there are hundreds of designs; blending different typefaces; casting off the number of word to fit spaces’ and marking up copy for typesetting, using different sizes and weights.
Good typography leads to legibility (readability), and attractiveness, and certain designs of type can create style and character or be characteristics of the advertised subject. Typography is yet another area that needs to be considered carefully, especially in print advertising material. Typesetters and photo composers swear by various types, conveying specific moods and ambience. Type styles are chosen, keeping in view the objectives and strategy of the campaign.
Stages of Advertising Design Process
The design process serves as both a creative and an approval process. In the creative phase, the designer uses thumbnails, roughs, dummies, and comprehensives-in other words, non-final art – to establish the ad’s look and feel. The final artwork with the actual type in placed along with all the visuals; the printer will need to reproduce the ad. The approval process takes place throughout the entire design process.
(i) Thumbnail Sketches – the thumbnail sketch, or thumbnail, is a small, rough, rapidly produced drawing the artist uses to visualize layout approaches without wasting time on details. Thumbnails are very basic. Blocks of straight or squiggly lines indicate text placement, and boxes show placement of visuals. The best sketches are then developed further.
(ii) Rough Layout – in a rough, the artist draws to the actual size of the ad. Headlines and subheads suggest the final type style, illustrations and photographs are sketched in, and body copy is simulated with lines. The agency may present rough to clients, particularly cost-conscious ones.
(iii) Comprehensive– the comprehensive layout, or comp, is a highly refined facsimile of the finished ad. A comp is generally quite elaborate; with elaborate, with colored photos, press-on-learning, Photostats of sub visuals, and a glossy spray coat. Today, a copy for the comp is typeset on computer and positioned with the visuals, and the ad is printed as a full-color proof. At this stage, all visuals should be final.(iv) Art work – this is the final stage of layout. Here care is taken to look into each minute detail. The copy is properly composed or lettered. Proper photographs, paintings, sketches, or graphics are used. Other elements like borders etc are properly places. Coloring is done. Finishing artists give the final touches. This stage is now ready to be printed. All these various stages of preparing the layout are beneficial in a many ways. First these stages save time, money and efforts. If you prepare a final layout without taking the approval and it gets rejected, then all the material used, efforts and time spend are wasted. Also working on only one idea curtails the various other possible options.
A layout starts with a blank piece of paper. What the layout artist does is to place the copy, visuals, and other elements on it. This placing of elements is not just mere decoration. What is required is a good, clear vision and interpretation of the selling concept of the story. A good layout allows all its elements-visuals, headlines, subheadings, body copy, charts, maps, logo, borders, and other elements-to work together to do the job of telling the product story.
A good layout takes into consideration the principles of balance, proportion, unity, contrast, harmony, rhythm, and direction. And finally a good layout must be attractive, must create an appropriated mood or feeling, and must have individually to stand out from the clutter of advertisements.
(v) Dummy – a dummy presents the handheld look and feel of brochures, multipage materials, or point-of-purchase displays. The artist assembles the dummy by hand, using color markers and computer proofs, mounting them on sturdy paper, and then cutting and folding them to size. A dummy for a brochure, for example, is put together, page by page, to look exactly like the finished product.
(vi) Mechanical (paste-up) – the type and visuals must be placed into their exact position for reproduction by printer. Today, most designer does this work on computer, completely bypassing the need for a mechanical. Some agencies, however, still make traditional mechanicals where black type and line art are pasted in place on a piece of white art board- called a paste-up- with overlay sheets indicating the hue and positioning of color. Printers refer to the mechanical or paste-up as camera-ready art because they photograph it using a large production camera before starting the reproduction process creating color keys, prints, and films of the finished ad. At any time during the design process- until the printing press lays ink on paper- changes can be made on the art. However, the expense may grow tenfold with each step from roughs to mechanicals to printing.
(vii) Approval – the work of copywriter and art director is always subject to approval. The larger the agency and the larger the client, the more formidable this process becomes. The agency’s creative director first approves a new ad concept. Then the account management team reviews it. Next, the client’s product managers and marketing staff review it, often changing a work or two or sometimes rejecting the whole approach. Both the agency’s and client’s legal departments scrutinize the copy and art for potential problems. Finally, the company’s top executives review the final concept and text.
The biggest challenge in approval is keeping approves from corrupting the style of the ad. The creative team works hard to achieve a cohesive style. Then a group of non-writers and non-artists have the opportunity to change it all. Maintaining artistic purity is extremely difficult.
Typography
Typography is the art of selecting and setting type. Because almost every advertisement has some reading matter, type has tremendous importance. Typefaces affect an advertisement’s appearance, design, and readability. Art directors rely on stark, eye -catching typefaces to help break through the clutter of competing advertisements.
Type Families
All typefaces (or type fonts) come in families, just as human faces do. Many of them have proud family names, usually inherited from the original designer of the typeface, such as Bodoni, Gothic, Goudy. Certain families offer all kinds of variations. To present his client’s product well, creative executives use various typefaces. Most traditional types have small cross strokes, called ‘Serifs’ that appear on the arms of certain letters. Some of the more modern type designs do not have these tiny extensions on the end of letters. Such typefaces are called ‘Sans Serif’. Each family offers capital letters and small letters referred to by typographers as ‘uppercase and lowercase’ and may usually be italicized.
Typefaces
Families of type fall into one of several faces’. These include Rom an (Bookman, New Century, Schoolbook, and Times), Sans Serif (Franklin, Gothic, Futura 2, and Helvetica), Square serif, or Egyptian (Aachen Bold), Script (Calligrapher and Nuptial), and Pi faces (Wood type Ornaments and Zapf Dingbats). Typographic noise is said to occur when type families of the same face are mixed in an advertisement, Sans Serif types are best used for headlines and serifs for body copy as the serif enhances readability. The serif makes reading easier because ‘it cuts down the reflection of light from around the letter into the reader’s eye (halation); it links the letters in a word and provides a horizontal guideline; and it helps distinguish one letter from another. Because of their superior readability, serif types are also preferred for copy that will be faxed as individual letters lose clarity in faxing. Most of the type one sees in a textbook, novel, newspaper stories, and a magazine article is Roman type.
Points
Type is measured in points. There are 72 points to 1 inch vertically. Most familiesof type offer sizes from tiny 6 point to giant 72 point and larger. When fairly longtext is being set in type, 10-point, 12 point, or 14-point size makes for goodreading. Beyond 14 point are the displays or headline sizes. The ad layout includedthe amount of actual length and width of the advertisement itself.
Pica Measurements
In typography the unit of area measurement is called a pica. There are 12 points in a pica, 6 picas to an inch. A copy block might be termed 16 picas wide by 36 picas deep.
The biggest challenge in approval is keeping approvers from corrupting the style of the ad. The creative team works hard to achieve a cohesive style. Then a group of non-writers and non-artists have the opportunity to change it all. Maintaining artistic purity is extremely difficult.
Typography
Typography is the art of selecting and setting type. Because almost every advertisement has some reading matter, type has tremendous importance. Typefaces affect an advertisement’s appearance, design, and readability. Art directors rely on stark, eye -catching typefaces to help break through the clutter of competing advertisements.
Type Families
All typefaces (or type fonts) come in families, just as human faces do. Many of them have proud family names, usually inherited from the original designer of the typeface, such as Bodoni, Gothic, Goudy. Certain families offer all kinds of variations. To present his client’s product well, creative executives use various typefaces. Most traditional types have small cross strokes, called ‘Serifs’ that appear on the arms of certain letters. Some of the more modern type designs do not have these tiny extensions on the end of letters. Such typefaces are called ‘Sans Serif’. Each family offers capital letters and small letters referred to by typographers as ‘uppercase and lowercase’ and may usually be italicized.
Typefaces
Families of type fall into one of several faces’. These include Rom an (Bookman, New Century, Schoolbook, and Times), Sans Serif (Franklin, Gothic, Futura 2, and Helvetica), Square serif, or Egyptian (Aachen Bold), Script (Calligrapher and Nuptial), and Pi faces (Wood type Ornaments and Zapf Dingbats). Typographic noise is said to occur when type families of the same face are mixed in an advertisement, Sans Serif types are best used for headlines and serifs for body copy as the serif enhances readability. The serif makes reading easier because ‘it cuts down the reflection of light from around the letter into the reader’s eye (halation); it links the letters in a word and provides a horizontal guideline; and it helps distinguish one letter from another. Because of their superior readability, serif types are also preferred for copy that will be faxed as individual letters lose clarity in faxing. Most of the type one sees in a textbook, novel, newspaper stories, and a magazine article is Roman type.
Points
Type is measured in points. There are 72 points to 1 inch vertically. Most familiesof type offer sizes from tiny 6 point to giant 72 point and larger. When fairly longtext is being set in type, 10-point, 12 point, or 14-point size makes for goodreading. Beyond 14 point are the displays or headline sizes. The ad layout includedthe amount of actual length and width of the advertisement itself.
Tagged with: advertising design • advertising design stages • advertising layout steps • comprehensive layout • dummy advertising • eye catching design • typefaces advertisement • typography • typography advertisement
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