The 5 Most Important Things I've Learned as a Graphic Design Intern

One of the projects I've done in school

This fall I was blessed to have the opportunity to have my first graphic design internship and I finally got to see what my life would be like when I pursue a career in this field. I graduate in December and I am glad I had a look into what my every day life would be like when I find the right job. I have decided to share with you what I have learned through this internship and what you should expect if you graduate with a graphic design degree.

1. You won’t be working a 9-5: 

Graphic design, just like any other art field takes a lot of time and concentration. I work at my internship from 9-4, two times a week and then 1-4 on Friday’s, this might seem like a lot, but it’s not. On top of school work for other classes I often spend 5-10 extra hours a week on projects for my internship outside of the time I spend there. Be prepared to put in a lot of work in order to meet deadlines and finish work that is well done. 

2. You’ll learn a lot more on the job: 

I’m not going to sugar coat it, I didn’t learn as much as I thought I would in college. Anything I learned in graphic design I mostly taught myself through watching videos online so I could do new and innovative work on my projects. Your learning will continue when you start a full time job. Technology changes, so you’ll need to continue to educate yourself, whether through informational videos, or through your colleagues. I’ve learned that through my internship I am able to learn more real life situations and also expand my knowledge in design. 

3. You’ll never stop getting critiqued:

In every art class I’ve taken we have a formal sit down critique when the deadline is up. When you find a full time job, just because you’ll more likely have more freedom don’t expect to not be critiqued by people. You’ll probably get critiqued more often and more harshly, what every artist needs to remember is to not take things personal. Critique is helpful, people aren’t trying to talk down on your piece, they are helping you make it better. Just remember that when a lot more people are looking at your work and judging it when you get to the real world.

4. You’ll need to know more than design:

I am a marketing minor for a reason, graphic designers need to know more then the art side. Learning basic marketing skills can only help you in the long run. Designers need to know how to work with clients,  target an audience, and usually work with a budget. Marketing classes taught me a lot about this, as well as real life experience in my internship. I highly recommend having a little bit of a marketing background as a graphic designer, it won’t hurt your artistic ability, but it will help you with business in the long run.

5. You’re always going to need to be passionate: 

Long hours and quick deadlines can be frustrating for people and if you realize this when you are in school graphic design might not be the field for you. Throughout your career this is what you will deal with and that will never change. Any profession requires passion, but not all professions are as tolling as graphic design can be. Make sure you find a job that allows you to continue to be creative, otherwise your passion can burn out quickly and you won’t like your job. 

These are just a few things I’ve learned in my time in school and at an internship. No matter your major in college, I recommend an internship for every one. An internship prepares you for the real world and teaches you what you need to know before finding a full time job. I’m sure I have a lot more learning to do, but I’m glad I’ve learned this much so far and I’m excited for my future in graphic design. 

How Colors Influence Print Advertisements

What do you think of when a specific color comes to mind? Does blue make you think of sadness, the sky? Does white make you think clean, blank? Colors are an important part of every day life and they are something designers and advertisers must think about when they are producing a print advertisement. Designers of print ads might look at colors different than viewers, but their goal is to get the message across and make the copy more enhanced by the elements. 

Every color suggests something in the advertisement; listed below are common colors seen in print advertisements and what they suggest. 

White: Cool, Pure, Clean

Black: Strength, Unknown, Heaviness

Blue: Royalty, Formality 

Red: Heat, Excitement, Love, Passion 

Orange: Warmth, Power, Fall

Yellow: Bright, Refresh 

Advertisers can use color to try and evoke emotions out of viewers, which allows them to gain a connection not only to the ad, but to the brand as well. This is important because this helps the brand become recognizable to customers, which can lead to brand loyalty. 

Colors can stand alone, work well together (with the correct tones and hues), and also make a black and white advertisement easier to read. Using color in a black and white advertisement has shown an increase in response and sales for that product. Black and white advertisements still exist but full color grabs attention of more people so that is why advertisers use more color. 

Color is complicated, designers need to make sure to use the right tone, the right hue, the right contrast. Designers must make sure not to use too little color and make the advertisement dull, they also cannot use excessive color to distract from the copy. Too many colors or even pictures could make viewers distracted and they may not even read the copy. Balance is important between the copy and design, color is a major consideration that must be taken. 

A great place to find out more information is from this book I found online: http://www.patsula.com/books/gb60.pdf

George Lois and His Influence

“Advertising is not a f**king science, advertising is an art — no questions about it”

  — George Lois 

George Lois is one of the most accomplished art directors of all time, and is also accomplished through advertising. He changed the way graphic designers looked at advertising. He is most well known for the covers he designed for Esquire magazine during the 60s. 

George Lois has had a major impact on many companies with his revolutionary techniques he has taken companies such as Braniff International Airways from the bottom to the top. He came up with their tag line When You Got It, Flaunt It; this along with the commercial he made sent the airlines popularity and profits up. It is also claimed that Lois help create MTVs campaign “I Want My MTV”, as well as gave VH1 their notoriety.

People hear the term the “Big Idea” in both advertising and graphic design, this is something that George Lois created. It is a term that symbolizes an attempt to communicate the brand, the product, the concept by creating a message that consumers will remember. Characteristics that make a Big Idea successful include; it has an emotional connection, it’s universal, connects people in any country, it has value, and it is distinct. The Big Idea is taken into consideration for every advertising/marketing campaign, and these characteristics must be present in order for the campaign to be successful. 

Lois called himself a crossover guy, he has borrowed as much knowledge from graphic design as he has from guerilla advertising. I think more people need to think like Lois, he is why graphic designers and advertisers look at each other for creative ideas. While I was reading an article called “10 Tips For Success From George Lois, The Original Mad Man” the first tip he ad was “my first commandment: the word comes first, then visual.” At first, as more of a graphic designer I was a little offended by this statement. The more I thought about it, the more it makes sense, art directors can create anything around a statement, they can make multiple options, but how hard is it to add copy to visual? The copy is the message, it’s what people remember the visual element helps enhance the copy, makes it more interesting and better. There is an obvious crossover, like Lois explained. 

Going back to the quote at the beginning, “advertising is an art” is 100% true in my eyes, visual elements can often stand on their own. Copy can as well, but not as well as something such as art. How well does copy resonate on radio over copy included with visual elements? Print advertisements need the visual elements in order to succeed. So, like I posted once before there is a crossover between advertising and graphic design, especially in print. George Lois helped both marketers and designers realize the importance one had on another. 

Sources:

http://www.aiga.org/medalist-georgelois/

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670603/10-tips-for-success-from-george-lois-the-original-mad-man

Analysis of an Advertisement

One thing everyone does, but probably doesn’t realize they are doing it is analysis of advertisements. Whether they see an ad flash across the TV screen or they come across advertisements in a magazine, everyone is always doing a quick analysis. Most people don’t spend a lot of time analyzing, they glance and flip to the next page, or maybe even turn the channel. There are a lot of elements that marketers and graphic designers need to consider when making an ad and I am going to share what I have learned on how to analyze a print advertisement. 

One of my first projects assigned to me when I started the program at the University of Northern Iowa was to do an advertisement analysis. Everyone in the class was given a ad found by the teacher and on a poster had to point out the elements the advertisement had to make it visually appealing as well as write some copy about it.

This is the first time I had ever seriously analyzed an advertisement and I learned there is a lot more to the ad the more I visualized and thought about it.

The elements that can quickly be picked out from the ad are color, the use of space, and direction. Shown is a visual way I was able to pull out the color and ad lines to show the strong direction used in the golf advertisement. What people don’t realize, just like I didn’t when I was doing this project is the underlying questions marketers need to ask themselves when having the designer make the ad. The three important questions I’ve learned to ask when analyzing a ad are:  

1. What does the text say? 

2. Who is the ad targeting?

3. What does the image say?

These questions can be thought of more deeply as well; what is the relationship between the copy and the image? Is there a theme? What is the use of the space saying? After asking the questions people will have a better understanding of why the ad made the decisions it did. Not everyone needs to analyze an ad, but learning how to is interesting because you can look at an ad a quickly learn the message the marketers were trying to get across, which sometimes isn’t what people think at first glance.

While researching a bit of this topic I came across the website http://www.frankwbaker.com/checklist.htm. I found this checklist helpful if there was ever a time someone needed to analyze an ad, it has all the important things that are needed to be thought about when doing the analysis.

 

These two Nike ads ran together, but are separate. Like every ad there is a message that isn’t clearly seen on the surface, only people who analyze the ad will be able to understand what the marketers are saying. Clearly put the explicit messages; “Ladies First, Men Second” or “One More Thing for Men to Rule”  on each ad is shown with large, white text, which is prominent. These ads are dealing with what some people see as gender issues, but both messages are empowering. What underlying message do you analyze? To know more visit http://www.reed.edu/anthro/adprojects/2011/gould_ramey_butcher/ to understand what the ads were trying to portray and what the messages were.

Creative Bloq: A Great Resource

While doing research for blog posts and research for my own projects in graphic design and advertising I always end up looking at the website creativebloq.com. So today I am going to tell you why you should consider using this website in your future. 

The first time I came across Creative Bloq was when I was working on one of my first projects for graphic design when I started at the University of Northern Iowa. I was looking for fonts to use,  but didn’t want to pay for them. I typed in “the best free fonts for graphic designers” and Creative Bloq popped up. This page had 100 of the best  free fonts and not only did you get to view them, there was a link you were able to click to go straight to download the font onto your computer. 

This is one of many attributes Creative Bloq has. The site is easy to figure out and straight to the point, you aren’t searching for what you're looking for, it’s there. You could spend hours looking through all the information they place on their website. Creative Bloq has everything from articles and trends, broken down sections of their website, and tutorials. Although I find this website to be mainly about design they have sections for topics such as advertising, branding, and photography. 

I have placed this website in my sources and am on at a couple times a week finding new sources for my graphic design and advertising products. If you are ever stuck on an idea browse their website, I can promise you whatever you come across will spark your brain and get ideas flowing. You can find other resources straight from Creative Bloq which is a great tool. I highly recommend looking into the site and adding to your list of resources, it won’t let you down.

Below I have placed the link to take you to their website! Check it out:

\Creative Bloq

Important Graphic Elements in Magazine Advertisements

The basic elements of design are line, color, balance, harmony, shape, texture, scale, dominance and emphasis, typography and space. When you match these ten elements with the seven elements of print advertising some match up. The elements of print advertising include layout, size and shape, placement, paper and ink, graphic elements, color vs. black and white, and copy elements. 

As shown above both print advertising and the design elements go hand in hand. One print advertising element is “graphic elements”, in this post I will lay out which graphic elements are most important to print advertising for magazine ads. 

Magazines are media where people see a lot of print advertisements so today I will be exploring some of the important elements graphic designers need to consider when designing an advertisement that is placed in a magazine. 

1. Typography: Typography is used for different parts of the magazine advertisement, viewers can see it in the headline and the copy of the ad. The typography doesn’t have to be similar but it needs to be readable and eye catching, especially the headline, to grab attention. 
2. Harmony: Not only does the design need to look good it has to have harmony with both the visual elements and the advertising elements. People need to see that the copy and the imagery match, they need to make a connection to understand. 
3. Dominance and Emphasis: The advertiser needs to understand what elements need to dominate in the ad or have an emphasis. This depends on what the ad is trying to sell, sometimes the image or illustration will need to be emphasized, sometimes the copy will take the dominate roll. 
4. Balance: Balance in design is how all the elements are arranged. Balance is important when making an ad, all the elements need to have a good balance in order to draw viewers eyes to the ad and move it throughout so viewers see everything the advertisement is trying to say. 

Above are two successful print ads that use the elements of design to draw in readers and sell their product.

All the design elements can be incorporated in some sense in a magazine advertisement, I chose these four as the most important because they are seen in almost every print ad seen in a magazine. 

These design elements are considered in other print ads as well, but are probably considered more in magazine ads than considered in print ads such as billboards. The ads in magazines are a little more complicated and since they are seen for more than five seconds they need to grab attention. Design elements are what bring the viewer in and keep their attention until the ad gets the point across. The complication of these elements is often not present to the viewer, they don’t consider the thought that designers do, but the elements are needed for a good design. 

Research for this post found from: 

http://smallbusiness.chron.com/7-elements-print-advertising-15325.html

https://creativemarket.com/blog/2013/12/02/10-basic-elements-of-design

Print Ads Still Influential to Businesses

With the evolution of technology why do businesses still spend millions of dollars a year advertising in print? 

Because print ads still work today and are influential. Here’s why:

Print ads are help branding: having a strong brand identity is one of the most important elements for any company, print ads allow people to get to know your brand while selling your product. 

Print ads are tangible: unlike digital advertisements, print ads are something you can touch, you can grab, you can take with you. Print ads can stay around for years whereas with digital advertising the ad could be gone in seconds.

Print ads are engaging: print ads generate engagement between consumers and advertisers with different information. A print ad can be teaching you something, selling you something, etc.

Print ads are straight forward: with print ads there isn’t as much outside noise to distract the viewers from the information on the ad. Digital ads have a lot going on around them that can easily take someones attention away from what the advertisement is trying to say.

Although digital advertising is making a large leap, print ads will remain an important aspect for businesses for years to come because of these important aspects they bring to the world of advertising. 

Here is a good example of an engaging print ad in today's world.

This ad can be seen in magazines, maybe even on a billboard.

Mercedes-Benz uses an ad like this to enforce their luxury brand.

Research from article on forbes.com