A client recently paid for an advertorial (“special advertising section”) in a national publication.

Included with the placement price was design & layout of the 4 page piece.

The idea was — as it usually is with these segments — for the in-house art department to use our photos and logos to create a layout that was in-line rest of the magazine, so that readers would not simply skip over the section on their way to the next article.

However, when the proof came back, my clients hated it. And I had to agree.

It looked… mostly… blah.

Whether or not it looked like an article in the rest of the magazine (and I don’t believe it did — I’m not convinced it wasn’t thrown together by a first-year college intern), it was lacking in design.

It did not intrigue, fascinate or sell!

Although the final art deadline was within 24 hours, I volunteered to redesign the piece.

Clients = happy.

In other words: advertising should be slick.

No. Not really. But I am ashamed that the agency responsible for these ads is probably Philly-based.

I already wrote about the odd tone of advertisements for the condos at Liberty Two (viva Lady Liberty!).

I speculated that they could do another ad with building resident and Phillies ace pitcher, Cole Hamels.

Well, they did.

As Philebrity and a ton of others noted when these came out in Philadelphia Magazine, the ads are pretty ridiculous.

Is that Cole, Elvis or KD Lang hugging the orange pregnant Heidi?

Why are random children playing in Cole’s bed?

Is this apartment in a hovercraft to obtain that angle of view out the window?

Anyway, bringing this up now because if his pitching is not up to par in today’s game 2 of the National League Division Series, I put all blame on the creative director who came up with — and subsequently approved — these ads.

Okay, and maybe Cole’s agent, too.

Update: Le sigh…

The marketers for the Residences at Two Liberty Place must really know their target demographic.

Why else would this call-girl-esque model be the main feature of their advertising, both in print and on their website.

When I first viewed their outdoor ad, I didn’t even get the connection between the name of their building — Liberty II — and the Statue of Liberty, from whence they derived this Lady Liberty character.

Really thought it might be an ad for a high end sex club, or one of those hotels that rents by the hour.

Even the copy suggests that the “private tour” might be more than just a look ’round an empty apartment.

Guess these people are sure they won’t offend the women/wives choosing to pay ridiculous prices to live in their highrise.

Philebrity puts it well: “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful. Hate me because I’m the exact kind of asshole who’d pay $2M for an apartment with no opening windows.”

Yup, that’s the demographic. If they really wanted to go all out, they’d do another ad with Cole Hamels — a building resident — in the same kind of seductive pose.

Then they could really give the Parker Hotel some competition.

Great series of ads for jobsintown.de.

Not sure it would work here in the US; people would mostly ignore them as they rushed around their busy days.

Or maybe not. They are incredibly eyecatching. Large photos. Minimal copy. Creates curiousity. Gets the message across.

Good design meets good concept.

By Scholz & Friends, Berlin.

Check out a few more in the series here.

This graphic of icons better describes what the incredible new groove box Maschine does than all the words about it on their box, online, or in manuals. 

A true example of great design by Native Instruments.

I really always wonder how product and brand designs like this can hang around as long as they do.

Perhaps it’s a matter of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” Or perhaps they still have printed bags left over from the 1930’s? Doubtful. But amusing.

Okay, not to mention the product name itself. Also a relic from earlier times, I imagine.

And Bryn Mawr Smokers Sundries is now Chenille Kraft Company in Illinois, with a single graphic placeholder website.

Maybe I should offer them my services…

Proofreading is important in print design, and that means more than running spell check. The omnipresence of auto spell check has allowed designers to become much more lazy on this point.

Instead it should make them more vigilant (note to self!), because this reliance makes it easier for other kinds of errors to make it into final products.

For example, grammatical inaccuracies. Or simply typing “cat” instead of “can”. Or using the wrong version of a homonym.

Fixing those that do slip by can look almost as silly as the mistake in the first place.

For example, this sign in a shop on South Street has a word cut out of it and replaced. It immediately caught my eye — I was just walking past, rather quickly, when I saw it (okay, okay, I admit, I shop there everyday… .

It looks silly, and makes the whole shop look kind of second-rate, which it’s not (it’s actually a rather fancy “erotica shop”).

My husband speculated that maybe this was part of a marketing campaign, a sign with a changeable tag line. We pondered what other slogans could be featured:

“Better LEAVE Your Boyfriend”
“Better WANT Your Boyfriend”
“Better KILL Your Boyfriend”

None of which seemed as likely as the mixup of then/than making it all the way to the final printed poster.

Good design has a lot to do with good typography. And as a corollary, good writing, and therein, good spelling and grammar.

With the ubiquity of spell-checkers these days there are few excuses for misspellings in final published work, be it destined for print or online.

Some things get lost in translation, however. It’s certainly common to find grammer and spelling mistakes in equipment manuals translated to English from Japanese, for example. And it’s somewhat of a cliche amusement to check out Chinese restaurant menus translated to English.

One of my favorite Chinese food restaurants has had the same typos on the front cover of their menu for as long as I’ve been ordering from them, so at least 3 years.  The thing is, they’ve gone through several menu redesigns during that time. The current incarnation has nice graphics and even some photos.  But couldn’t anyone along the way point out the simple changes that would make me stop laughing whenever I see the menu?

Hey, maybe they want me to laugh. Who am I to argue with that. All I know is this: Mondy close. We delivery. Words to live by.

* where I cribbed the title for this post