YES!
You may not notice graphic design in your day-to-day life, but the truth is that you're surrounded by design—good, bad, and ugly—all day every day. Think about product packaging, cell phone apps, t-shirts, mailers, and everything else you interact with on a daily basis—each of those things are the result of hundreds or thousands of small decisions by designers who worked to make sure their message could be conveyed using a design that reflected their brand. And that's what just you want to do with your campaign's ads, too.
You don't have to be a graphic designer to create beautiful graphic design—here's our guide to a few tips and tricks to make your designs POP.
1. Pick ONE message to convey. Too often, candidates try to fit too much text into a display ad or too much movement into a video ad.
- A pro tip for designing your display ads is to have no more than 7-10 words on the screen at any given time. Bold, succinct points and quick keywords work better than nuanced platform positions in advertising—after all, the average person is only going to be looking at your ad for a second or two! If you have more to say, you can always use multiple creative sets to convey multiple messages.
- If you're creating video ads, time yourself (or your voice actor) reading through the script slower than you would speak in normal conversation—and don't forget to leave about one second to pad the audio at the beginning and ending of the audio (so there's a brief quiet pause before and after your ad audio).
2. Put your name front and center. Your name or your logo is key to your brand identification, so you want to make sure you identify yourself prominently in your ad.
- If you are using a very detailed logo, it may work best to simplify it to its most basic elements to ensure it's legible at all file sizes and across platforms.
- If you're pulling colors from your logo for your ad background, or if you're planning to add your logo on top of a photo or video background, be sure your logo stands out properly from the background to make sure all of the text and other logo elements are visible.
- If you'd rather just use your name or a word mark (a specific look and feel to the way your name appears), it's important that your text is legible and stands out clearly from the background of the ad.
3. Keep the design simple. Too many colors or graphic elements may make your message hard to read. Use the colors and fonts in your brand guide—ideally no more than three colors and one or two fonts—to ensure that your brand comes through without being overly crowded or busy. You want to ensure that your message is coming across clearly to make your ads valuable—after all, if someone misses the message, the ad didn't do its job.
Having trouble getting started? Take a peek at our templates in the Turn It Blue Ads Creative Shop for a quick and easy way to get started designing ads you love.