July 2014
Over the last century, advertising has evolved from formulaic newspaper ads into all sorts of shapes, styles and designs. Yet despite the great amount of freedom today’s marketers and designer have, most advertisements follow a simple six-part design:
- Heading
- Subheading
- Copy
- Image
- Caption
- Call to action
In this blog post, we’ll look at the anatomy of an effective direct mail postcard and discuss what makes each element – from the heading to the call to action – such an essential part of a profitable direct marketing campaign.
There are more than one million words in the English language, from complicated polysyllabic terms to simple connectives and pronouns. While all words have their own purpose, only a select few trigger powerful impulses when we read them.
Without a doubt design is a fairly subjective matter. It’s nothing short of challenging to account for personal taste and preferences. Color in design is no exception. A color may cause one person react one way and another person will have a have a completely different reaction. Happily, these reactions can be fairly culturally predictable. For example, in Western culture white often carries with it the connotations of purity while in Eastern cultures it represents mourning. One more hitch, though: color carries very personal meanings that may vary slightly from one’s culture. Color is known to affect mood and encourage certain types of behaviors, such as stimulating appetites. Also, some colors may be more appealing to certain sexes and age groups than others. The bad news is color can be a complex subject to navigate. The good news, however, is there are many tools and conventions in place that make choosing color for your designs a bit less daunting.