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.

Hap

Several graphic designers in our group were challenged to take part in a series of full-page ads for a special edition of the paper. The only requirement was that we incorporate the client's logo into the ad, in addition to keeping the Red Wings logo a major focal point.

HAP was one of the clients who ran a full-page ad in that special Sunday edition of the newspapers to honor The Detroit Red Wings' championship, after they won the Stanley Cup in 2008. Many advertisers wanted to take advantage of the special rates for this celebratory event hosted in Detroit.

I chose to use orange as my background color,  the color of the HAP logo, then blend the background so that it is darker at the top, making a lighter transition at the bottom. The blend made the text legible and the Red Wing's log stand out. I incorporated the HAP logo into "Happiness in Hockeytown," which was a smashing success.

Home Interior Warehouse

Blending colors of the background that match the photo created a smooth transition for this ad. I used the photo of the living room set as my inspiration then using my eyedropper tool in PhotoShop, I created a custom color palette from which to make the blend. 

This method worked well as it pulled the ad together. Having the word "Huge" in a vertical format, draws the eye up and down the page, and matches the 50% off area below.

This ad was large enough to experiment with, so I did just that with other layouts and ended up with this one. The customer was satisfied with the original ad and other than a few minor tweaks, it ran just as I had designed it. 

Sometimes getting what the advertiser wants can be a shot in the dark; other times, you just nail it. Those are the best times in my world.

Joe's Produce Half Page

Joe's Produce Hotsheet

Joe's Produce Full Page

Joe's Produce was a big client that usually ran multiple ads in various areas of the newspapers. The liked green for the background of all their ads, but were open to new ideas as far as layout. Each of these separate ads highlighted the featured product for that week. Sometimes Joe's Produce would run simultaneous ads on the same page, which meant that the designer would have to develop two looks with a cohesive design so that the ads would pair well, instead of compete. It always helped when a client provided a great, clear photo, such as the one at the top of the ad to the left.

Meade Dodge

Meade Dodge wanted a huge ad campaign which a variety of ad sizes showing different vehicles. I gave them several layouts using the dealership's requested autos and trucks, keeping continuity in the ads and taking advantage of the black color scheme to give the vehicles a chance to be the focal point of each ad.

This campaign gave me the unique opportunity to take creative license with each of the headlines, so I chose to use the vehicle for each particular ad as my inspiration and came up with "Take the journey with us," for the first ad, then "Take the Journey," for the second ad.

I wanted to use a play on words so I came up with, "You need Meade." The subsequent ads were also created with the same styling so that the customer had a wide selection of ads to run for several weeks.

The dealership also had wanted to use testimonials from people, but needed to first see how they would appear on the pages, so wrote copy for each testimonial and paired it to the photograph.

J.C.Deep Tissue Massage Therapy

J.C. Deep Tissue Massage Therapy offers a nice selection of massage therapy as well as reflexology at their Eastpointe location. I created this low-key, soft ad showing a woman receiving a massage. The ad is visually appealing and instantly gets the message, "massage" across to the consumer. The client was happy with this ad and ran a full advertising campaign.

The Pampered Chef

Pampered Chef

The Pampered Chef wanted an ad to be featured in the Home Style section of the paper that easily identified their product. I selected this photo of mushrooms cooking in a pan which not only gets your taste buds into high gear, but creates a visually stimulating graphic for the business.

Pella Windows

Pella Windows is known for their high-quality windows and doors. They needed an advertising campaign that reflected their products in a simple, professional manner with an elegant style.

For two ads, I chose a black background and worked the logo into it in Adobe Photoshop, opposite the photo of the bay window.

The results were clean, classy looking ads, which were legible and dynamic. The ad to the left ran in the Home Style tabloid of the paper while the ad below was a strip ad, that runs the horizontal width of the newspaper at the bottom.

Strip Ad

Macy's

Macy's had requested an ad for the Red Wings playoffs that  used their logo, the bright red star. The ad needed to have a white background which best showed off the red star.

I had wanted to create a motion effect, so I chose to use a hockey puck with a star on the top, then made it blurry in Adobe PhotoShop, which ended up showing the largest red star in the upper right corner.

Macy's loved this ad! This ran as a full page, in the Sunday edition of the Detroit Free Press when the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup in 2008.

Sea Shells

Into the deep blue sea...or at least, a good representation thereof. This customer wanted an ad that would be instantly recognizable as a place that you would purchase aquariums and related supplies. It was necessary to redesign the logo to accommodate the placement on the ad and remove the original white background, which was done in PhotoShop. The colorful coral in the photo draws the eye through the ad and the coupon starbursts on the left side coincide with the overall color scheme of the ad. I created a shadow effect for the coral and changed the color of the bottom to create a good backdrop for the location. The ad was successful, as it ran long-term. 

Shades of Blue

I enjoyed creating this ad for the popular 1960's group, "Shades of Blue." They are known for their song "Oh How Happy," as well as many others that topped the charts fifty plus years ago. They wanted a dramatic look in which the photographs could be showcased without a lot of text, so I chose a black background which works well with the startling blue in their suits, making the photos "pop" off the page. I created the ad in PhotoShop, using the name as inspiration for the title, which is also in shades of blue.

A soft vignette around the photos blended together on three layers softened the harsh edges and created a compelling, interesting ad that worked well for the client.

Kitchen Top Shop

Everyone dreams of having a newly remodeled kitchen. This small ad had a lot of text, so the challenge was not to make it look too busy, yet still get all the information across. Sometimes the customer allows the copy writer to develop the text for their ads while other times they supply the text, in which case you have to make it work and fit it all in there, so therein lies the challenge. 

While this ad may have more copy than some of the others in the same size, I felt that it worked well, because of the transparency of the footer and careful placement of the text. The reverse center text on the black ribbon stands out but doesn't take away from the clean photo behind it.

Kay-Bee Construction

A new kitchen is an exciting, time-consuming and costly venture. Kay-Bee Construction had a summer special they wanted to promote and chose to start out with a smaller ad which eventually led to larger ads for their campaign. Using the special effects feature in PhotoShop, I created a contrasting headline which was bright and eye-catching, then opted for a red sub-headline that draws the eye to the colorful display of bottled items on the countertop. When working with a smaller sized ad, it's important to utilize the space to its fullest potential.

Shuman

One of many car dealers I designed ads for, this one was unique because of its color scheme in shades of blue. Shuman wanted a completely different look and feel of their previous ads, therefore I suggested a bold, blue headline "Bigger" that actually stretched to fit the space allotted for the area. I created the graphic text in Adobe Illustrator, then imported it into the layout program, Multi-Ad Creator, and re-sized it to fit the space. That was my inspiration for the background, a watery photo showing movement and varied colors of light blue at the top fading to a slightly darker blue at the bottom of the ad. Since car dealers always have "special "events, it becomes challenging to create an ad to reflect that specific goal. This color worked well for this ad, specifically, because the opposite ad's primary color was yellow and red, which actually complemented the subtle, yet striking blues in the full page Shuman ad.

Soccerworld

Soccer World is a sporting goods store with four locations. Their goal was to have a large, colorful ad to best capture their product and incorporate their logo. I used Adobe PhotoShop to create this ad using special effects to give the headline, "Spring Special," and the "50% Off All Adidas Jerseys" text a 3D appearance that works well with the bright jersey of the man in the photo. The rest of the text was created in Microsoft Word, then imported as a smart art file so I could incorporate bullet points.

The ad throughout the spring season then was redesigned with other background photos to highlight other products available in all locations.

Soulliere Garden Center and Landscaping

Soulliere Garden Center & Landscaping

Soulliere Garden Center and Landscaping is a St. Clair Shores high-end landscape business that sells all the usual landscaping products as well as quality outdoor gardening equipment and materials. They wanted a colorful ad campaign to reflect the store's product line as well as highlight the services they offer. I had the opportunity to develop four separate ads for this client, each with their own unique look, yet still coinciding with the other ads for continuity. Since color was an important element I chose similar backgrounds for continuity.

The Designate

The Designate

Drunk driving is a serious offense, therefore it was necessary to adopt a color scheme that reflected a somber subject matter and still had graphic and visual appeal. The right photos make the ad, so choose photos of people being arrested provided a quick visual as to the nature of the message.

I did the copy writing for this ad so it needed to be to the point and get the information across in a legible format. I designed the simple "D" logo from the same font as the company's name. The bold yellow header captures your eye and correlates to the logo letter at the bottom of the ad. 

As a result of creating this compelling ad, the client signed a six month contract and added other similar ads in various sizes.

Tres Jolie

Tres Jolie

A hair salon that offers makeup, massages and a spa is always a fun way to spend an afternoon for a woman, so this ad needed to attract attention from a select clientele, young women between the ages of twenty-one and thirty-five. This salon offers not only haircuts, but facials, waxing and nail service. I selected a vivid red-brown combination background which I created using Adobe PhotoShop so that it complemented the woman in the photo without distracting from the focus of the ad and the coupons, that the customer had wanted to be the main attraction. I had a lot of fun creating this colorful, elegant advertisement.

Wolf Aesthetics

This ad was designed as a quarter page size for the Home Style (tabloid) section of the newspaper. The doctor specialized in skin care treatments such as micro peel, skin rejuvenation, hair removal, botox and other skin-related treatments. The client wanted a close-up of a young woman's face, with a clean, uncluttered appearance in the ad. I searched through our online photo subscription for the right photo, then incorporated the text so that it doesn't detract from the photo.

The challenging part of creating this ad was to keep the look unique, separate from the other ads that also run in the same tabloid with similar products. Therefore I chose a partial view of the woman's features, focusing on the cheek and forehead as to highlight the skin tone. I chose a transparent vignette for the bottom of the ad to include the logo, location and phone number.

The client loved the ad, which ran for a period of approximately eight to ten consecutive weeks. After that time had expired, the ad was modified slightly and ran again. In addition to this ad, the customer also selected a smaller version to run in another section of the newspaper, which eventually created a campaign that resulted in added revenue and more advertising as well as a referral to an associate. I was grateful for the opportunity to work on this ad.

Winestyles

Winestyles

This was a fun ad to work on. Former Red Wing, Igor Larionov owned "Winestyles," a wine tasting store in Livonia. I had legal use of the photo and was provided the text, but found the proper wine bottle photo for the bottom of the ad, which I felt was appropriate. The white background made this ad pop, since the Red Wing uniform makes a good contrast for the overall layout of the ad. Deceptively simple, this ad took a careful eye and an attention to detail while designing it. The ad was approved and the owners were satisfied with the results. It's great to have a happy customer!