Ep15_Design For Advertisement
===
[00:00:00] Hi everyone. I'm Pip from Seymour Digital Media. You're listening to Know How Marketing Lab podcast. This podcast brings together different experts in marketing from our Facebook group, cyberpunk Geeks, marketing Mixer. Each week we get on here and we talk. About something. Search marketing like Google Ads or seo, social media marketing from Facebook to TikTok or website marketing.
[00:00:24] If you're a marketer or aspiring marketer, a business owner or entrepreneur, this podcast for you, we're gonna share the best seo, search, social and website strategies. We share tips and. Google ad strategies, what's going on in the current market. Each week we discuss something exciting and awesome in marketing.
[00:00:45] Good morning everyone. It's Serena Little from Little Works Indy Media, and this is Geek. Speak with Greg. Greg, do you wanna introduce yourself? Hi everyone. I'm Greg with the original 72 Creative and we're a full service website [00:01:00] graphic design and digital marketing firm in V. And today we're gonna discuss design for advertisements, which is one of the things that both Greg and I had a lot to talk.
[00:01:11] A topic that we both are really interested in. We work with designs for this in particular very often. So Greg, where do we start when we think about designing for advertising? A lot about design and graphics and things to consider. So yeah right off the top, I think I wanna mention, That people really need to put more consideration into their graphics just in general, because we'll go through a couple of things, but for I see so many.
[00:01:45] People posting things on Instagram or Facebook thinking they're gonna get something outta it, but the graphics are just like, oh, I'll use this. And it's an afterthought almost. Like I need something [00:02:00] to show. What I'm talking about. But there really needs to be a little bit more thought and care put into what it is you're trying to do.
[00:02:10] And that goes back to previous topics of really knowing what it is you're posting for having that plan together and the creating the graphics in certain ways, just compliments that knowledge that you have behind you and shows how much more professional and put together. Your advertisings will be, and I find a lot of people don't do that enough.
[00:02:36] Yeah. So I'd like to make a distinction here, because you used the word posting, and for me there's a really big different difference between posting and advertisements. So I'm thinking about running Facebook ads in particular, a lot of these things, these tips that were gonna. With today or present today, we'll go through posting too.
[00:02:56] But one of the biggest problems that I have is that designers are [00:03:00] not necessarily savvy on what happens on the Facebook platform. So they don't really understand how the platform affects their design. And so a business owner might say, Hey, designer, I'm gonna launch this. Product, I wanna have all the information on here.
[00:03:14] Generally thinking back to newspapers or they're thinking posters or designers will naturally go to those things when they think about advertising and they often lay things out that's best for print. And posters and not because they have no experience working on the back end of actual ads. So we don't want this to be an afterthought.
[00:03:35] We don't wanna get all of our stuff ready, like we don't wanna put it up on the website, create the, all the collateral on the website and then say, okay, now we're gonna push it out on our socials. So I need an image. So there are three things that we wanna consider. One is, what you're choosing the other one, and we're covering all of this placement of the components and then what the Facebook and Google platforms, [00:04:00] what they do with the imagery based on the different outputs.
[00:04:03] So you can't possibly, you can't have the same image for everything. You generally wanna either. choose the most optimal that will look okay across all things. Or you wanna create separate images for placements. So Greg, one of the things that I do with my designers, and I'm gonna just ask you the question, is, I know from my photographer days, not that I was a professional photographer, but I did go to school for it, is that there's, there are some placement considerations that you wanna make when you're placing.
[00:04:39] Multiple components. So it might just be text on an image, it might include a couple of images with some text, but what do you recommend in, for the person that doesn't really know design very well, where do you start? Yeah I see that all the time with images and they're like, I want to use this in a graphic and I to say this.
[00:04:59] And then I'm [00:05:00] like, where am I gonna put this on this graphic? Because there's not really a good place. So you, so considerations for me are to make sure the, you choose the item that you. Want to be most vocal in the picture is not dead center. Want it to be off to one or the other side or in an upper or a lower section so that you so consider when you're looking at images, where that text will be placed to a spot on the page.
[00:05:39] Yeah. Yeah. So if you haven't heard of the golden rectangle or the golden means or the I like to call, yeah. Golden ratio. I like to call it the tic tac toe tic tac toe board. Cuz if you think about it, you have, if you break your image up in two-thirds that way and two-thirds this way, like [00:06:00] into thirds both ways.
[00:06:01] Then those lines are the important lines. You want to make sure that you know you're not to the left or to the right, and then if you've got a person. In there, you wanna consider like where do you crop them? How do you move them? Because there are a few basic points. So if you're gonna crop top of the head a little bit, not too close, because that makes people look weird, but a little bit off the hair is okay.
[00:06:27] And then you wanna crop people at their short sleeve. Line if you're gonna crop them along the top. And then if you're gonna crop a sort of a body, you wanna crop sort of the first, the top third of your thigh. And then if you wanna crop any lower than that, you don't crop at all. And you always include the shoes
[00:06:44] You don't wanna have people starting at the ankles, which, or the midcalf, which is actually a. It's quite common to see people do that when they're doing their own stuff. And then the other thing that you wanna do is when you're thinking about those sort of thirds, [00:07:00] you want to crop people. You wanna put their eyes on one of those lines or you wanna put their lips, their smile on one of those lines.
[00:07:07] That's, those are pretty good things to remember. And then the text, if you have text, if you have a block of text, you, it's the center of the text. That you're matching up with one of those lines, not the top of the text or the bottom of the text, but the center. And that should generally keep you online.
[00:07:27] And the one thing that I love and that I always get my new social media people in who don't maybe have a background in visual, any language or. Or design or anything. I'll get them the book called Design for Non Designers, and it just gives some really easy tips and you can just thumb through and mark the spots for what you know, the different ways of.
[00:07:50] Thinking about how squishy our text should be, how big it should be, and should it be over to the left? Should it be over to the right? If you have the person looking in this direction, where should the [00:08:00] text go in relationship to that person looking in a direction? All of those kinds of things are easy little.
[00:08:06] Tricks to pick up if you're aware that they actually exist. And this book is great. It's just a easy reference book. And then you are bringing up focal point focal information. Greg, and I'd love for you to chat a little bit more. How do you handle hierarchy of information? Cause I think that's what it is.
[00:08:23] It's deciding the hierarchy on your inform. Yeah, the, so essentially you want to have a good size heading, and the heading should be impactful and really capture what your advertising is supposed to be about. The second thing I typically see that are wrong with some graphics is they have a nice, large heading and oriented nicely on the image.
[00:08:54] There's a little bit more. Detail in a smaller font right underneath the [00:09:00] heading, and sometimes it's small. Sometimes it's a, maybe a sentence or two. And then thirdly, There is like a call to action or button or something saying sign up now or that kind of a thing to, to get people to act.
[00:09:18] And what I notice a lot is that the size of the secondary text underneath the heading. Is smaller than the call to action button or text, which if your eye is going straight from the caption heading to that, they're not seeing that secondary text, which should be more detail about what it is you're presenting them above.
[00:09:51] That caption. Yeah. And a lot of people will skip it, and because the button might be bigger or the call to action is bigger and they're skipping over that [00:10:00] information and you don't want that to happen because then they're. They're not having enough information to interact and fulfill what you want this graphic to achieve for them because they don't go back to that.
[00:10:14] Cause they go to the heading, then they go to the next biggest thing, which might be the call to action and they just skip over that, that other tech. I see that a. So what we're talking about here is the flow of your eye through the information. So what's the direction and the movement that your eye takes through an advertise advertisement is pretty important.
[00:10:36] So just on that note, this is where I butt heads with designers because and business owners, cuz I don't really want that secondary information on the image at all. And I sometimes don't even want that button on there or the call to action depending on what it is, because when I put those advertisements up on Facebook, the call to action, the button, the call to action is the heading, like a [00:11:00] little, heading on the bottom of the image.
[00:11:02] The button is separated outside and then there's a nice little spot for all that text to go, and so I don't like it when we repeat what's in the image and what's in the text. And what's in the text is super important. What gets put in the status is really important because electronic readers will read that.
[00:11:22] That's how Facebook organizes its search. If you're searching for events, for example it'll show up from. Details can bring your event up for certain search results. So we don't wanna skip putting that stuff into the actual platform. So I don't really, and also then the other problem is that, are people looking at this on a desktop or are they looking it on an iPhone.
[00:11:47] So you're, when you're, when you put the information on the image, That image goes, and then all that little text goes hoo, and then all of a sudden no one can read it anyways. So [00:12:00] that's why I like to have the secondary text in this status. Do you like my little side effects? I've done those all night.
[00:12:07] I've been practicing those. It was the total shrinking sounds exactly right. So I feel like we really need to know what the application is for these images when we're deciding what kind of information to put on the image, because I definitely think there are some key points that you could put to make things pop.
[00:12:25] But the one thing that always gets me is that people put their event name on the image and then it comes up in the Facebook event page and it comes up on the event, bright Page. And so it's just a duplication and it doesn't add anything, and it doesn't help. I don't think it really helps that much.
[00:12:43] I don't know. Maybe, I don't know. Yeah I wasn't coming at it. I guess less of from the point of view of it being specifically for a Facebook ad. Yeah. Which is how you're coming across this, which, and I completely agree. [00:13:00] Yeah. And just in general, you have to think about your graphic, what you're gonna be using it for.
[00:13:07] And only put on it what is really needed because it's not like you want to clutter the entire graphic with all kinds of texts. Yeah. And you absolutely don't wanna do that. You wanna keep it minimal, but get a point across. Capture someone's imagination. So sometimes instead of putting the event title on the image itself, what I like to do is one of those little red banners that go across the corner that says only 10 tickets left, or only five tickets left, or whatever it is.
[00:13:41] That will help to move people to action because it's limited, right? So anything that creates that kind of Ooh, I better get my ticket now before it sell, sells out, rather than if you have just an event that's. That doesn't actually tell you how many tickets are left. People think that they have all the time in the [00:14:00] world before the event time to, to purchase that ticket.
[00:14:04] So those kinds of things will move people to action. Want to know more about seo? We've got a class for that. Our mission is to educate students about the right tools, techniques, and strategies to grow their businesses using the most UpToDate search engine marketing optimization techniques and tools.
[00:14:24] Find out [email protected]. Okay, so the next thing that we wanna talk about then is different placements. Can we talk about placements now? . Yeah. Placements from the point of view of placing texts within the image, no sorry, placements in apps like placements. So for example, oh where you're gonna use the images, where does it go in Facebook itself.
[00:14:54] So here's the other thing is that most people don't know on the platform because they're just hitting boost on the. [00:15:00] They don't actually look at their image and organize their images well for placements. So what happens is you watch it on you. You've made an image that's this. Shape for your Facebook desktop, because that's usually what you get from a designer unless you ask for other things.
[00:15:17] You might get a square for social, but you'll either get a square or rectangle and then all of a sudden Facebook is trying to shove that thing onto stories and it's cropping it in this direction. And so when you go. Ads manager, you do have the ability to crop your photos manually, which is very helpful because sometimes all you need to do is move things over slightly and then you get most of the important bits in there.
[00:15:44] Enough of the important bits in there to run the ad in that spot. But sometimes you absolutely don't and it looks terrible so it's really good to go and do your ads on Ads Manager instead of just hitting that boost post, and then you get the ability to also [00:16:00] upload. Independent images for those particular placements.
[00:16:03] So you can ask your designer if you give them the specs, you can ask them for a different aspect ratio. So aspect ratio is the ratio of the across to the down. Most people don't know that. They try, they ask for what size and they want like centimeters or they want pixels, but it doesn't really work that way.
[00:16:22] Aspect ratios is easier to work with and every platform has their aspect. Organized online, you can just Google what you need for each of them, but generally a square will be the best if you don't have the money for all of the iterations on Facebook. But if you can, it's nice to get a square plus the little mobile phone shape size, which is 16 by.
[00:16:50] Yeah, I think the most important thing to think about really is whether or not you want to use these graphics in multiple [00:17:00] locations, like on a, like a full portrait mode, on a mobile phone or desktop. And typically for desktop for the easiest compatibility, like you said, square would be your best option.
[00:17:14] But if at all possible, you wanna create your graphics with the specific sizing of each of the places I agree. You wanna use Yeah, I agree. That's totally issue one. One of the good things about some of the graphics applications that are out these days, like I know Canva for sure, and I use Figma xd. Oh yeah.
[00:17:38] They all have pre sizes. Yeah. In the system, if offhand where you're gonna start to use these graphics, you can specifically pick those aspect ratios in those applications to, to start creating your graphics. Makes it really easy to just start with the [00:18:00] sizing that they provide right there for each of those.
[00:18:02] Yeah, and pro tip, if you're doing one advertisement across a bunch of different places, start with the square, then you. Edit that into the 16 by nine, which is the mobile phone version. And then you can also do a rectangle one for, let's say you're doing it a blog post also for it or a MailChimp banner.
[00:18:26] You want a MailChimp banner. You're, you can go from a square to a rectangle easier. What's really hard is going from a rectangle, designing everything up, all really pretty in there, and then trying to get it. A 16 by nine. That is trust me, don't start there. Start with your square, move to the phone.
[00:18:43] Go back to the square, move to the rectangle. And canvas should be able to organize that nicely for you. It won't be exactly the same. You'll have to put your components at different places, but it'll at least be a cohesive campaign. It'll look good across all. [00:19:00] Yay. Yeah, so somebody's absolutely asking if they'd love to see some graphics examples.
[00:19:05] Okay, , we'll try and post some. So if you're not watching this in the Facebook Cyberpunk Marketing Mixer group, that's where you wanna come, cuz that's where we will post some examples of designs. And where to put things and all that stuff. We'll see what we can come up with. Do you think we can do that, Greg
[00:19:28] Yeah, I'm pretty sure I have some graphics that I've created. Terrific. That I can share. Yeah. Terrific. Okay, so what other aspects have we not hit on? That's on our little notes. A couple of things that we had considered talking about were colors. Oh yeah, of course. And making sure your graphics basically stay on brand.
[00:19:54] I was coming at this a little, obviously you're heavy on [00:20:00] graphics for Facebook. I was thinking of it more in general, just graphics in general, creating for any use, whether it be web or social. Or ads, but you wanna make sure you keep on your brand colors. And one of the things that I was telling you about that I was confirmed with recently was specific colors for call to actions and things like that.
[00:20:29] In graphic or just On a website in general? Yeah. Yeah. That the color theory of using a blue or a red or a green button over. Another color to get more Yeah. Clicks or more traction. Yeah. On ad Yeah. Is like completely unfounded. Yeah. And what you really need to focus on is keeping on brand colors for your business and [00:21:00] having as much contrast.
[00:21:03] As possible in anything that you really need people to notice or take action on. And the contrast really is what's going to make people see and make the graphics more usable. Yeah. So I just wanna expand a little bit about what you mean by brand colors, because I think that sometimes business owners get a little bit mixed up and a little bit rigid in what that means.
[00:21:30] And so brand color, Is more than just what your logo colors are. So what we don't really wanna see is people designing entire websites and everything that they do in just the colors from their logo. What generally we do after we establish your logo colors is we create a palette, a branding palette of colors that compliment your logo colors.
[00:21:54] So generally they're going to be, if they're done well, , in my opinion, I like the ones that [00:22:00] are, sometimes they're analogous. Similar colors, ways. I like the ones that are contrasty because that actually not contrasty, what's the word? What's the word for the colors that are across each complimentary, right?
[00:22:12] So if you work with a complimentary color palette, As opposed to an analogous color palette, you will automatically build that as into your palette and into your brand, which makes it a lot easier when you, when it comes to making decisions on what colors to use for your call to action buttons, for example.
[00:22:30] But what we noticed yesterday, which was super fun, cause we went through a whole bunch of big. Multinational e-commerce stores the other day to see, because it wasn't that long ago that marketers were telling you make those call to actions in bright red and get those people's attention. And it's like people are not dumb
[00:22:47] If they want your thing, it's not gonna be the color red that makes you buy, it's gonna be actually the how it's going to affect your life and make your life better. That's what's going to make them want to buy, and then they will find. [00:23:00] Complimentary button, but what we noticed was that there is really a unified approach to e-commerce at the moment, especially in fashion.
[00:23:07] And that is like this really clean white space and then that allows all of the product to pop. Because it's not in contrast to your brand colors throughout the whole site. And even a lot of the brands that we knew that they had colors, even, they would put their logos up in the left corner, very quite nice and small, like how we like it, but they would put them up in the black tone rather than their actual full color.
[00:23:32] And then the other thing is the buy buttons were usually black on the white back. So they were easy to pick out because against the color of the product and the white background, black is actually a really good choice. And it seemed to be the aesthetic that most of the fashion big brands were utilizing.
[00:23:54] And then here's the other thing that you can do. When you think about your brand colors, you can [00:24:00] also introduce every now and again a color that's not part of your brand, which is what, was it the bay that was doing it, or was it the gap? I forgot. But one of them had the, we looked at the bay and it had red and green.
[00:24:12] Yes. That's what. They were red and green are part of they have that multicolor. Oh, that's right. That's true. But that green wasn't that green. A little bit different than their brand green though. Like I thought it was more a Christmas green Close enough. But yeah. But they cleverly and beautifully integrated the green and red, which you're right is part of their brand.
[00:24:34] But I think that green was different. It was more of a teely green rather than a greeny green. But anyways. They did it in this really subtle way where when you rolled over the buttons, the Christmas colors came up, which I thought was really good. It's almost like simpli, a little bit subliminal, but not, and it's, it is nicely Christmas and festive, but not in your face,
[00:24:56] So I really enjoyed. That little introduction of color in that [00:25:00] weirdo little spot. And so yeah, it's super important to have contrasty things so that things pop. Oh, I had a client yesterday and their website we're just gonna do a refresh for them. And their last website was all done in their brand colors.
[00:25:14] In their logo colors. No, no other palette except for. I think three colors, and it just, it looks, she was complaining that she felt her sight looked, washed out, and that's why it looks washed out because you're using, and it's not washed out like it is a really, they're both, they're all three of them are beautiful colors, but it just has the washed out effect because it's not contrasting, there's nothing contrasting with it.
[00:25:39] So color plays a super important part because it affects your psychological response, how you respond. I know we're creeping up on, oh, the, oh, can I just, we left here. Can, and there was, sorry, one last thing. Last thing, or do you have one last thing to do? Do we have time for two? One last thing maybe it's the [00:26:00] same last thing.
[00:26:00] We'll go with mine for Okay. With, yeah. It was about spacing as well as alignment. It was SPAC and. Content on your graphics line up and the spacing, meaning how far apart things are from one another so that it creates a little bit of that negative space within. And so items on your graphics aren't competing with each other.
[00:26:26] Are really important in the overall aesthetic of what your graphics end up being. Yeah, and especially, I see people go a little bit in the wrong direction with this spacing when I think about it, like padding, padding around the elements. So if you've got a box of text, it doesn't go right down to the corner of the image that you're using.
[00:26:47] There's a little bit of a space. Your logo is not smooshed up down at the bottom there. It's got a little bit of space, and you should have a brand branding document that actually dictates how much space that actually. [00:27:00] Is, but if you don't, something can come to your logo. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
[00:27:05] Cause you don't want things butt up. It makes people anxious when you've got things really touching and stuff like that. It actually has this effect. And then the last thing that I wanted to bring up was the types of images. So I always explain when I'm choosing images, I. Choose images that are descriptive.
[00:27:24] So unless you're selling a product, if you're selling a product, you're gonna use the product . But if you're selling a service, you don't really need to be descriptive. So for example, if I'm selling social media training, I don't want to be putting out Facebook and Twitter logos and stuff like that. I work on the idea that you want to create an image where your client is going to be able to imagine themselves in that space.
[00:27:49] So I think of lifestyle. I look at happy, not stressed out, entrepreneur type looking people where the training has actually impacted their [00:28:00] life, that they feel really great about things. So you want to do that sort of thing. And people do convert better than other kinds of stock images and non stock images convert better than stock images.
[00:28:14] But if you only have stock, pick something that doesn't look so stockish, that looks and animals convert really well too. And anything that's arresting, you want things, you want your advertisement to come out of the page when people are scrolling through. So sometimes you use, like I've seen some brands use images that have absolutely nothing to do with what it is that they're selling, but it goes really well because their brand is edgy.
[00:28:40] So the photos are edgy. And not they don't address any of the things that are being sold in terms of services or products. So yeah, that's how I wanted to end off. And now we're well over . Thanks for sticking with us. But they were all good points, so thanks. All right, so that's [00:29:00] all we've got for you this week and next week you can join us again here again in the Cyber Punk Marketing Mixer Facebook group.
[00:29:09] If you're not watching us there already. And I'm just trying to find, I have it up. Where is it? It's just everything's a. It's gonna be our monthly marketing roundup. All right. Next week is the monthly marketing roundup, so join Greg and I along with Pip and Fallon, and we'll see you next week. Have a great.
[00:29:30] Thanks everyone. Thanks.
[00:29:33] The conversation never stops in our Facebook group, cyberpunk Geeks. Join us at facebook.com/groups/cyberpunk geeks to ask your questions, meet new friends, and learn even more about search, social and websites.
