Boersma Travel

When you look at this ad, what do you see? If you get a sense of cruising a river in China, you're on the right track as that was my idea when I found this perfect photo of the sun behind gauzy clouds as it sets, perhaps somewhere in the eastern sky. 

Boersma Travel has been around since 1945. For this ad, they wanted to feature a special trip to China to cruise the Yangtze River. They had asked for an ad with minimal text, which allowed me to choose a photo that filled the page. 

The ad ran as a full bleed, to take the most advantage of the colorful photo. In addition to this ad, the customer ran other size ads for a long campaign,  featuring different trips per month.

Gayle's Chocolates

I LOVE chocolate, so designing this ad was a sweet job, indeed. Having experience making chocolate covered cherries, peanut butter cups and truffles, I knew immediately which color scheme I wanted for this ad. I blended deep red at the top to rich brown at the bottom, which screams, "chocolate cherry." Gayle's Chocolates, in Royal Oak, are known for their specialty premium chocolates, truffles and cherries, therefore the layout of this ad needed to reflect the best of the best. 

The customer supplied the photos, so it was up to me to create a dynamic, colorful layout that would make your mouth water and reach for the nearest piece of chocolate, or better yet, make the trip over to Gayle's on Washington in Royal Oak, Michigan.

I received a box of Gayle's Chocolates for Christmas last year and finally got a chance to try them and I have to say, they are simply divine! I'd highly recommend if you're a chocolate lover like me, to head over to Gayle's and check them out. 

O The Day Spa

While creating this ad, I wanted to get the feeling of total relaxation across, so I chose this perfect photo with a deep purple background in a dark room and a pile a towels on a table for an immediate awareness of a relaxing afternoon at a day spa. I placed the photo on the left and the text on right, which allowed enough space to layout the copy in an easy-to-read format without looking cluttered. 

Farmington Hills Inn

For this quarter page ad, the client wanted something colorful, yet appropriate for an assisted living facility. They opted not to show people in their photograph, so I hand-picked this tulip photo, as I thought it was a lovely background and touched on an independent living theme, which is all about new beginnings at the older stage of our lives. 

I used Adobe Illustrator to design the curved headline, then imported the text into Adobe PhotoShop, where I added the shadow special effects. This softened up the words and gave visual interest to the ad, seemingly to follow the natural curve of the flower. 

The background was the perfect complement to the look and feel of the ad. I chose white and yellow text colors because they had the right amount of contrast without being too brash. The customer was highly satisfied.

Garden Fresh

Strip Ad

We all love food, right? And why not? Food is one of the many pleasures of life and Garden Fresh Gourmet has a great reputation for freshness with all their products that are made right in Ferndale, Michigan. I designed this strip ad using a black background that shows the images and clip art to the best advantage. I felt that this was a great choice to make the items stand out and command attention. (That's what advertising is all about, right?) Having tried these products, I was able to put my best food forward when designing this ad because not only was I a designer with a job to do, I was a consumer that loved this product. By centering their logo and placing product on either side, created a visually appealing ad with a festive overall feel. I really enjoyed this one.

G. Subu's Leather Bottle

G. Subu's Leather Bottle is a restaurant in Livonia that offers a wide variety of American food, specializing in seafood. They were voted "Michigan's Best" from the Detroit News. 

The restaurant has weekly specials as well as house specialties including "catch of the day," a variety of fish, hand-tossed pizza, steaks, ribs and pasta. The salads and burgers are excellent and the prices are reasonable.

This client had asked for two totally different looks, so I came up with a black ad and a white ad, respectively. They liked both ads, so they ran them back to back for several weeks, then renewed the advertising contract and added a campaign which included a variety of ads for different sections of the newspaper. For the white advertisement, I used a photograph of salmon, to highlight the variety of fish they serve.

I designed this ad with nothing but a few suggestions from the sales rep. The rest was totally up to me. 

I immediately envisioned the look I wanted to achieve, which included lattice, which to me represents a garden, as it can be used as an arbor. I made the lattice in Adobe Illustrator then imported it into PhotoShop, where I created the vignette photos and special effects on the text.

I knew I wanted a green background, a fresh and versatile color. A simple font with some personality made a great white headline with a little shadowing. 

Using white and black text (in the lighter portion of the ad) created interest and worked well with the photo. I liked staggering the photos to create visual appeal and graphic interest. This also provided a good opportunity for text placement next to the photos. 

In the vertical full bleed ad below, I used the same lattice, but positioned it in the background behind the vignette photo and added pink text to pick up on the pink flowers in the photo.