Amiga Computing - Commodore Is Awesome

ank \ord shows
u how to avoid
ows in your
dverts
nybody con lay out an ad that consists
of a ful-page picture overlaid with four
lines of text telling the reader to contact
blandibloh on this freephone number,
those you see in the Sunday supplements, but
ads, particularly in Amigo Computing, aren't
that They °croon)
products , hove to a skeptical, but targeted, audience
As tever, o price is of paramount performance
a lot of blurb about the produci is usually
s e l l
ecessory, unless, of course, it is a brand new
of a kit that no-one has seen before or it's a bit
tenc l and a deserves r g a word or two of explanan.
e In fact, we should be able to break down
ertising n uin Amiga m Computing into three distinct
odes - those that have hundreds of products
b e r
sel, like gomes mail order houses or PD
aries, those that hove between 10 and 50
Kis to sell, like most of our advertisers, and
s that only need to plug one or two items like
Gordon Harwood ad for Pro•Grab.
Is the first instance, you can't really be too
cy with your layout, particularly if it distracts
eye from searching through the list of items for
that matches your customers requirements
should probably end up with a column format
the information, with boxes at the top and batof
the page For the name of the company and
ering information. It's a bit tricky to comment
er on these sort of ads as there is little room
Fr design elements, but make sure the reader
n scan across easily from the title to the price,
er by adding alternating coloured bars or by
Ming a line of dots across (PageStream 3 can
this automaticaly), and perhaps new items or
ecial offers can be flogged with a different
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AMIGA COMPUTING
FEBRUARY 1996
The art of
advertising
The pichoo ought to be
looms. OS the foru% of the
ad ve rt Pee ette toil ;aced
to read their way throuch
that moss of test It is too
smog againsi a cluttered
bodtoround arid the
t column is far too wide Pr
be comfortably rood
II,. logo I nke enough
bet w•o* If the ad Is en
o richt -
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colour or a bolder typeface. The third example.
single item ads, are the ones with the most design
potential. You can do practically anything and
sometimes this freedom can be disconcerting. The
most important thing is to avoid the 'boxy' look
that a lot of adverts produced on the Amigo
achieve effortlessly. If you are only advertising
one product, you can afford to spend the time
and effort in order to make your ad look a bit spedal.
Beware of using too many colours or typestyles.
I know it has been said before, but it is a
basic rule of layout that you shouldn't make your
design too busy
. There are ads in Amigo Computing (I won't
mention any names] that are incredibly hord to
garner any information from because they have
colours running riot over the layout and text that is
too hard to read. This is not the approach to take.
First of all, sit back with a cup of tea or a whisky
and plan out your page lor spread) on a piece of
paper, just sketching in where you want things to
go. Make a list of items that you want on the
page, phone and fax numbers, e
-price
information, delivery detoils and so on. If
moil you take credit cards, find the relevant images for
those you accept and if you can't find any, try the
addresses,
magazine your od will appear in - they will
almost certainly have some. Of course, if you ore
producing the magazine your ad will appear in,
then you'll just have to draw some for yourself in
DPaint or, preferably, ProDrow
. Bear in mind the differences between mono and
colour artwork il you are producing on ad that will
1
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1 he layout Is yore um
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In
The olemenn
sp o o l
gare
el logransed together CM
Sher* F imettlident space
rbehomen
the headlines cod
a, the body lest Even If you
:t do rend eill the way through
dthe
test, where Is the
o
prks poet? It dmaid be
Inessnaly obviout alarm with
o compormy phone
d number
o
b
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l
y
The ordettea totorrocelon
mock lobe boner
presented. Corned
numbers need to be
Inner and a simple form
showing costs should be
included
appear in someone 1 else's magazine, and make
sure you speak to the magazines art department
wel in advance about deadlines if you propose to
send them art Amigo DIP file for output Most nag.
ozines have never heard of ProPage or
PageStream, so will be suspicious of joking on a file
From one of these packages. The problems continue
For the Amigo DIP'er as neither ProPage nor
PageStream produce files that are even remotely
compatible with OuarkXPress or PogeMaker.
Probably your best bet if you are dealing with a
large magazine is to lay out your ad as you want
it and then send the pictures. logos, etc. to the
magazine along with a printout 'preferably in
colour' of your ad for the art deportment to work
from ond lay out in the DIP package of their
choice.
Well continue with some of the themes that can
be used for your adverts next month and go into
more depth on the topic, but until then, be cool
PAGE STREAM
PROGRESS
Not much this month. A haven t heard
from Soft-Logik for a while and there's
been no news on 3.0i, so J can only
assume that no news is good news and
they are busy beavering away on it even
as I write this month's column. More
news as soon as I get it.
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