College Advertisements

Here are some examples of what I work on. I put these together for this particular undergraduate campaign and sent each one off to a different publisher. As you can see, they are all derived from the same general template, which is essential for making the campaign look uniform.
Strict branding rules must be followed during the creation of these ads. For example, you may notice that the fonts are similar throughout. This font is called "Humanist" and a couple variations of it are used, such as "Condensed" and "Bold Condensed." The font must never go below 8.5 in size.

The lines that box in the ads usually have a stroke weight of .75 px or 1 px. Any lines that occur inside of the ad must be smaller, and are either .5 px or .75 px, depending on the outside box. The line weight depends on the size of the ad; bigger ads have thicker lines and smaller ads have thinner lines.

When creating these, I must also be aware of the placement of the photograph. There should be a little bit of space between the top of the woman's head and the top of the ad. The wall to the left of the stairs should always be slightly visible. It mostly boils down to what looks good.

The "My Degree, My Way" text should be in a good position on the photo, too. It should usually sit in between the lines of the stairs so that it can be seen clearly.

There are also several different official college logos to choose from, and this depends on the size and overall design of the ad. If there is a good amount of open space, the full-sized logo can be used. If there is not, the rectangular logo can be.

When typing out the times of information session dates, if one has a ":30" in it, all other times without it should have a ":00" at the end. If not, then it will simply say "4 p.m.", for instance. Also, 12 p.m. is always written as "noon."

These are only a few examples of the branding rules. There is actually an entire book that talks about the things that the college's designers should follow. I have looked through this book myself and it definitely had some size to it.