Magazine Advertisement
For this assignment we were required to create an advertisement for the Annual Sawdust Art Festival that could go in travel and tourism magazines. After perusing the Sawdust Art Festival website, I had a much better understanding of the type of people who would be interesting in attending and what kind of ad the Sawdust organizers might be looking for.
I decided to create a colorful advertisement that, while full of information, was visually appealing and easy to read. I believe their audience is full of eclectic, artistic people along with your average family; all of whom would enjoy a simple, but colorful advertisement.
The background color was chosen from colors within the artwork from the ad itself. I created a gradient swatch and placed it horizontally so that the reader’s eyes would be taken naturally from left to right. I picked the colors because I thought they were soft enough, yet bright enough to catch and keep the reader’s attention. I placed a basic feather around the entire page to give it softer, less blunt lines.
I chose to place the artwork at the very top of the ad so that the first thing the viewer noticed was bright and cheerful artwork as well as scenes from the festival itself. The logo was placed underneath the artwork and overlapped it slightly so that the scenes combined with the name of the festival. I did this so that, mentally, the reader would sense that the Sawdust Art Festival is full of colorful attractions and interesting people. Also, I added a basic feather around the logo as well as the artwork so that they blended together nicely. Furthermore, I added a drop shadow to the logo. I felt it gave it an almost 3-d effect. It feels as though it’s popping of the page.
Next I decided to place the “title” information under the logo. I used MV Boli in 24 point. I thought this would stand out especially with the yellow borders around the words. The rest of the type, with exception of “You’ll also enjoy:”, which was also in 24 pt., I used 14 point MV Boli. It’s small enough to fit everything I needed to say in the ad and big enough for the average reader to see. I put it all in white so it would stand out against the green and blue background. The only time I varied from MV Boli was for the web address which I put in 12 pt Minion Pro. I changed this because I wanted it to be in standard type so that the reader had no question what the web address was in case they wanted to go to the website and check it out.
I placed a 2 pt thick yellow box around the words “You’ll also enjoy” because I wanted it to stand out as if to tell the reader that the next few points would be joined together by a similar idea; they would enjoy these next few things. I liked the idea of placing them around the bottom of the page in random order. It makes it look as if they are quotes from previous visitors to the festival with positive things to say about their experience. You’ll see this done for book reviews on the back of a book jacket and I’ve always liked the way it looked. I decided to place a 10 sided polygon with a 33% star inset around the activity I thought families would most enjoy. I did this to make it stand out. As a mom, I know that hands on art projects would be the most fun for my family.