Tips on Presenting Your Ads' Illustrations to the Printer and More in Advertising

Whether you are commissioning illustrations or doing your own, it is important to know the form in which they will need to be presented to the publication or the printer. They will usually tell you if they have any special requirements, but generally speaking colour photographs should be in the form of transparencies or colour prints, and black and white photographs in the form of prints. Don't send negatives to the printer. If you are using a colour photograph in a black and white ad, make sure that there is enough contrast, so that it is clear. Photographs which look good in colour don't always look so good when reproduced in black and white if there are too many dark or light shades.

Line illustrations should be drawn on a sheet of clean white paper, preferably to the right size, so that they can be pasted straight on to the artwork when that stage is reached.

Captions can be important if the pictures need explaining, but don't include them if they merely repeat what is obvious from the illustrations themselves.

Body copy is the actual text of the ad. You don't need to know at this stage just what you are going to say in your body copy, but you do need to know approximately how much you are going to say, in order to allocate the right amount of space. It is also useful to know whether your copy will divide into separate "blocks'. If it will, you can use each block as a separate element in your layout, giving you a wider choice of possible designs.

If your ad is going to be all type, without any illustrations at all, you will need to work harder to make it look interesting. There are several ways in which this can be done; by:

• imaginative use of headlines, e.g. using more than one, or putting the headline in an interesting position

• using a clear and interesting typeface

• using a variety of typefaces

• using cross-heads

• using the layout, e.g. having the copy typeset in an interesting shape. If you do this, mate sure that it is a simple shape with straight edges, and that the shape does not make the copy too hard to read.

You will discover other techniques for yourself. Look carefully at other people's un-illustrated advertisements, and see what you can learn from them.