10 Minimalist Posters of Famous Movies!

Graphic Designer in Chicago

Sometimes simple is much harder than extravagant. Minimalism in graphic design is a creative and highly innovative art form. The best designs are ones that convey optimum message through minimum design elements. This is because most of the viewers have limited power of understanding the information revealed to them. Hence, this task of saying more with less proves the creativity and aptitude of a graphic designer.

However, the issue with the concept of "clean" design trend is that, if not used correctly, can leave ambiguity and vagueness in the minds of audience. It should not be used as a method of saving time and procrastination. Rather, it should be applied by graphic designers to add clarity and clearness to a project. Today’s collection accurately reflects the notion of minimalism through movie posters. These funny but precisely designed posters explain the entire plot of blockbuster movies using only one or two elements.

5 Characteristics of Awesome Ad Campaigns

Advertising campaigns aren't successful on their own, and there is a method to the madness. Every Advertising Agency has their own system, but you'll find that 99% of them use the same techniques, albeit in the different way. The following is a list of the common, and most successful characteristics of a successful advertising campaign.

Promote, promote, promote - tempting offers, unique selling statements, seasonal sales, gifts ... the strength of your campaign (and success) begins with the value of your promotion as perceived by your target customers. You know your customers. What do they hear? The best advertising agencies will be able to tell you.

Hyper Target - Now you have an irresistible promotion, identify your audience. With hyper-target customers, you will ensure that your message will be in front of buyers right at the right time. You will also ensure that there will be a part of your efforts and investment is not wasted.

Diversify - Use multiple types of media to promote your offer - such as email, postcards and bill stuffers - and improve the likelihood your message will be seen. The more media in a campaign, the more likely that the message will be delivered.

Focus - The best advertising action in the short term and long-term is focused thinking. This means that the continued promotion and strengthening of a marketing cycle in your target audience expects - and is waiting - to hear about your next offer.

Reflective - You are the force behind what makes an effective advertising campaign! Rethinking the campaign has had a big impact on you, got your attention, and force you to buy. What you take away one? How did this campaign to connect the dots and you at the door? Remember, if you sell batteries or car insurance, the basics of successful advertising are the same!

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How to Hire an Ad Agency

In June of 2007 alone, huge advertising accounts worth over $1.7 BILLION (wow) changed the advertising agency they were working with. Why? Because every time a company switches CMOs (Chief Marketing Officers) they typically switch ad agencies. They want to bring their own people in or they simply haven't seen the progress needed to keep working with the current ad agency.

Advertising is and can be an exciting, fast paced, very visible business and when businesses are advertising it makes them look really good. Especially to the competition. The relationship between business and ad agency is based on experience, confidence and trust. When trust is broken, the relationship ends.

For whatever reason, too many companies make their ad agency selection based on the wrong criteria. This causes undue heartache, inefficiency, confusion and a fair amount of lost productivity due to the new agency having to 'catch up' to the current branding and advertising standards.

Here are 10 guidelines on how to choose your advertising agencies carefully. We'll start with 5 things you shouldn't ever do.

Limit your search by Geography
While the fasted way to build a relationship is via face to face interaction, trust can be built over a distance. After all, aren't the most solid relationships built from long periods of separation? Keep in mind, you're looking for the right fit, not the closest agency on the block. If you had a medical problem that only a specialist in Zimbabwe could solve, would you limit yourself to a 50 mile radius? Of course not!

Screen out agencies based on size alone
This can go both ways. Don't count the little guy out - sometimes they have the best ideas. Likewise, if you're a small business and you court a large advertising agency, don't think you're not worth much to them. You could be in exactly the industry they've been looking to do work for.

Consider how agencies develop over time: talented people enter the workforce and stay a while. The good ones stay with the company and grow with it. The Great ones tend to run it after a while. The Best Designers and Advertisers leave that company and go do it on their own. The result? A small firm with huge potential. In addition to that - smaller agencies tend to have the best workers instead of interns or mid-level designers working on your projects.

Ask for spec work
This is a huge no-no. This is like asking the grocery store to give you free food, and once you taste it, you'll pay for it. Is that going to fly? The farmer who spent 3 months growing the food from seed to basket thinks not. Another reason? Most spec work is farmed out to cheap freelancers who are nowhere to be seen once you choose the advertising agency you're going to work with.

Letting the Spreadsheet to the Talking
It can help to develop a checklist of pros and cons of each advertising agency, but in the end, go with your gut choice instead of relying on numbers. A larger agency is almost always going to win that war, and even the best small ad agency in the world can't compete with such high turnover.

With this information, how do you actually choose an advertising agency? It seems like an impossible task when you've first started out, but over time, with several courtships, you'll be able to put your finger on the agency that does it for you.

Advertising Agencies: What do they do?

There are several Advertising Agencies in the United States and beyond. Most of them are in large glass towers in larger cities and you rarely see the face of the person you're working with. How do you know what they're doing until you get a finished product? This is where you'll find out!

Advertising is about getting into the customer's head and digging deep into the client's brand to speak to those customers in a way that gets them to buy the product or service you're advertising. But advertising doesn't stop at the billboards. Advertising agencies do everything from POS signage, to magazine spreads to website banners and beyond.

A great advertising agency will have two things at their disposal: a great marketing expert, and an awesome graphic designer. Here, we have both, and it's no surprise that our last success was a billboard, airport TV ads, and several billboard ads in the Las Vegas Airport for the Gene Simmons speaking engagement for a client of ours.

It was an incredibly fun event to design for and the advertising came out spot on. Several great ideas were scrapped before we came to this end design. All in all it was a great event (and we here Gene loved it!)

Image source: Gene Simmons

Excellent and Amazing Typography Art Works

We haven’t done an inspiration post in a while, and we were browsing Flickr this morning, and so thought we’d share some cool typography art we found. We're calling these “portrait typography,” but you may have a different name for them. We like using type as a texture, but this is off the cuff. Have a look and see what you think.
Chicago Graphic Design

Enjoy!