Ad Templates and a Painful Reality
It's a funny thing to see what can happen when you've done an ad as a template. I did some pro-bono work for a local non-profit, designing an ad for a series. After the first one, they said they'd like to just go forward with it as a template and requested my files. Since it's a pro-bono job, and I'm not one to lose my daylight hours lightly, I went along with this. I know better than that, of course. I know and have seen what happens when designers pass off their work to clients who want to move forward with it on their own, I just didn't think it would happen this time. Sadly, it did.
The image on the far left is the original ad (I don't have the published version, I never caught an issue with it inside) The middle one is the first iteration that I didn't touch. You can see where they dropped the screening on the background to make the type legible, and added a drop-shadow to the logo, making it impossible to read what's on the right side (also note, I did not design the logo, just used it) The titling was the serif instead of the slab-serif, and far too tightly leaded, completely breaking the rules I had. They changed the location of the contact information as well and placed it before any information of events. Really though, it wasn't nearly as bad as I expected.
Unfortunately, this was not true of the second ad. There is no background image, period. I used easily found faces, yet they chose whatever seemed to be convenient (at least it would appear) for the header. The logo got blown up to ginormous (it's almost a full 2" wide") the justified text that I spent so much time making even is completely neglected, word spacing gone crazy. All formatting, for that matter, is gone. It's just text on a page and a logo.
It's okay though. It's a learning experience for me, and hopefully one for the client. There's a clear degree of ability and sensitivity that got lost along the way and which will leave the ads getting neglected as well.
And it's an important lesson, I think, for all people when it comes to design. It's not something anyone can do. It takes time, training and visual sensitivity. It takes intention. Color, type and layout all matter. Hierarchy helps guide the viewer through the information. The value of this skillset is critical for an ad to be effective, and with each removal from that skillset the ad becomes clearly less effective (not to pat myself on the back too much). So many people are happy to dismiss designers, or agencies, because they don't see value in their services. They assume that a nephew with photoshop is the same as a professional designer. Hopefully the lesson here, is to think that such is as silly as thinking a child with toothpaste is a dentist. The child could clean teeth, but I wouldn't want to go to them for an exam.