Advertisement Setup

We'll look at these areas in action in the video coming shortly.

In the following example, our client is Adobe and the product we're promoting is Photoshop. Ads come in all sorts of sizes, and orientations, each with different and very specific measurements to work with. We'll refer to Wired magazine's advertising specifications for our ad. The ad will be a half-page horizontal and its specs can be seen listed part way down the page.

Once we know our size and placement, we can figure out how to best get the ad's message across in a unified, balanced, convincing, and attractive way.

Planning the Design

It's a good idea to look first at the copy (that's another word for the text) to get the gist of what the ad wants to say. Then you can make decisions about what kind of image to use. Often a client will provide the image as well as the copy. And it's our job to make the page work.

For this ad, we'll be taking a trip to the archives and crafting an ad for Photoshop CC.

Here's the copy I'll be using:

Headline: When life gives you lemons Photoshop makes them prettier.

Body: Adobe® Photoshop® CC software delivers state-of-the-art imaging magic, exciting new creative options, and blazingly fast performance. Retouch images with new Content-Aware features, and create superior designs as well as movies using new and reimagined tools and workflows. Learn more at adobe.com/photoshop

Think about that headline. What would fit with that?

Here's the image I decided to start with.

There are several reasons for my choice ("rawlemons.jpg" in your Lecture Four downloads). The first is rather obvious. It's a grouping of lemons. Another reason is that this is a photo that is composed in or near the Golden Ratio of 1:1.61803. If you haven't heard about this odd number, that's okay. You'll learn about it in later design studies. Images that follow the Golden Ratio are typically more pleasing to the eye than others.

Also note how the main shift of the image moves your eye toward the lower-right corner of the page. That's another reason for choosing this image, as this is the direction we're going to use as the basis for setting up the composition of the ad. We let the image tell us where things should go. Okay, let's start.

Our specs say the ad's full bleed (which means the image runs off the edge) dimensions are 8.25 inches x 5.625 inches. This measurement is the size we'll make our Photoshop document momentarily. The next measurement we will need to be concerned with is the trim size, which is the size the ad will be when the paper is trimmed or cut to fit in the magazine. In this case, that'll be 8" x 5.375. So we can say we have a quarter-inch bleed on the piece.

The third measurement is the live area. This is an inset like a margin, making sure that the important parts of our ad (the text, and type, for instance) don't get cut out. On the ad we're about to create, that's 7.5" x 4.875". On an aesthetic level, it also lets our eyes have breathing space before we embark on the ad itself. It's a way to set a pace to the rhythm of a page, something you'll get more familiar with as you continue your studies in design. But you can see here how we use them.

Setting up our Photoshop document, we'll use all three sets of measurements. We start, as I said above, with a Photoshop document is 8.25" x 5.625".

Note all the important parts: Resolution 300 ppi, Color Mode RGB, Background Contents Transparent.

Using the Ad Specs

Okay, time to start the ad. In the video below, you'll see that I've dropped my lemons image onto the canvas. The next step is to draw out guides that relate to the specifications of bleed, trim, and live areas.

We set up guides simply by enabling our rulers (View > Rulers), then clicking and dragging on the ruler area into the document. In the video you'll learn how to shift the zero-point of the rulers so that you can get an accurate set-up with the guides.

Preparing the Background

Our ad is about enticing people to use Photoshop, so we better do some photoshopping on our background image! We'll take our clean lemon image and use a combination of layer effects, adjustment layers, and layer masks to convert the pristine original image into something that reflects the message of the ad. We'll turn the full, beautiful lemons on the left into old and desiccated lemons. Then using a gradient mask we'll create a visual transition to the fulsome ripe delicious looking lemons on the right.

In the video that follows, we duplicate the original layer and apply an Exposure adjustment layer. By lowering the exposure, and shifting the gamma only a few points, we can make the lemons look horrible. We want that! Later in the video, we'll add a gradient mask so that we can see the desiccated lemons from the layer below showing through on the left, and the clean, full lemons on the right. That's our transition, and the shape that will dictate the placement of the text.

Adding the Basic Text

The background image is the basis, the reinforcement, for what the words say. So laying in the text, we need to look at how the image can do its job and work with our text placement.

We'll use both point type and area type in this ad. In the video, we'll place those and we'll talk about leading and its relation to type size. Spoiler alert: big type/small leading, small type/large leading. There is more to the plot, so I don't think I ruined the ending...

Okay, time to head back to our lecture where we'll proceed to finesse this text and finalize the ad.