Selecting photographs and artwork is an element that can set the tone or image of your marketing campaign, but you don’t want them to be the overriding factor unless you are selling artwork.
Photographs and artwork can make dramatic statements. If they are treated incorrectly, they offer no value and might be costly.
You don’t have to have photographs or original artwork in your marketing piece to get your desired goal. The proper use of typefaces, colors and white space plus simple graphics and clip art can add to the overall effectiveness of your marketing material. Should you choose to include photographs and artwork, there are some guidelines to follow.
Budgetary constraints can often dictate whether or not you use photographs. There are several ways you can incorporate photographs into your marketing pieces.
You can use 4-color (full color), dual-tone (2-color, half-tone, reproduced from a 1-color photograph where the photo is originally black and white and in the printing process another color is added) which makes it tinted. Or simply use black and white.
4-color photographs are more expensive to reproduce than the other ways. They do require 4-color separation charges by your printer.
If you can afford this process, think carefully about your selected photograph. If it’s a little out of focus, it won’t look any better once it’s printed.
Dual-tone is less expensive although the photograph will not be full color. It will appear to have color or, at the very least, be more colorful than a black and white photograph. There is an extra charge for this also.
Black and white photos reproduce the best when they have a lot of contrast. Careful consideration needs to be taken when choosing color, dual-tone or black and white.
I’ve have found that the most effective choice for an entrepreneur’s business is a simple black and white photo of the owner or a black and white photo of the owner and a customer or client. This can build credibility.
In addition, if you use a photograph in your material, it draws the reader’s eye to that photo, so you must take that opportunity to put a caption underneath the photograph. This is a mainstay rule. Always include a caption with a photograph.
Putting together your marketing material with all the right Ingredients is a lengthy, but worthwhile process. If you have someone else put it together for you, make a checklist for them. Using photographic images with the following will produce the desired results you’re looking for.
Avoid using all capital letters - All capital letters will get more attention, but slow down the reading speed of the person and thus their comprehension. It doesn’t give a natural flow to your marketing piece. If you want to emphasize a certain word or a group of words, italicize them or bold them. In your headline or subhead, you can use a bigger type face than the rest of the body text. You might just capitalize the first
letters of each word.
Avoid filling up all the space you have to work with - If you cram too much information into a given space, it is difficult to read and the reader might lose interest. White space can be an effective design tool that will draw the reader to specific information that you wish to emphasize. However, don’t confuse this with an advertising rep when designing a space ad that says, “Let’s use a lot of space here and there.”
Make effective use of your space in telling your story and listing benefits, but you don’t want to pack it together so closely and tightly that when a prospect looks at it, the eyestrain is so bad they don’t want to read it. There is a balance to achieve.
Avoid too much reversed type text where the background is black and letters white. You might use it sparingly to emphasize one idea here and there. Usually, it can be used to draw attention to a particular item. If it’s used for too many things, it loses its effect and nothing will jump off the page.
Avoid using more than 2 typefaces (3 maximum). Too many type faces will cause confusion and slow the reader down. Two will draw attention to different pieces. Maybe one typeface for headings and subheadings, and one for the body text. That’s usually all you need.
These two typefaces should have some contrast. The body text is usually in a “Serif’ type font and the headline and subheads are in a “Sans Serif’ type. A common type of font used is a Courier font and a Times New Roman.
Avoid having white space wasted - Wasted white space occurs when there is a hole created somewhere in your layout that is not really part of your design. A white hole of space which has other elements all around it really differs from using white space in a good way and it will draw attention to itself instead of to, a headline or a picture or body text available.
Best regards,
Abe Cherian
CEO, Multiple Stream Media, LLC
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