Made From Scratch RP Ad USA Today Size - View n Comment

[mkrfctr]

EDIT: Either some take offense to the words "shit" and "dumb ass" in the poll or are concerned that others might. While I think anyone who takes offense at those words is someone with something up their buttocks (likely their head), I would change it but I cannot, once a poll is made it cannot be changed (so as to not change the options or the wording and change the intent or meaning of someones vote).

Well, here's my effort. Feel free to say whatever you want, no hurt feelings to be had here. I do ask though that you keep the arguing down so thread doesn't get moved.

As to the design I kind of started with the RP pic and then the BG images, I did grab and work with the same founder pics as in the other ad, but ultimately couldn't think of a good way to incorporate them into the design or the copy.

EDIT: I THINK EVERYONE AGREES THE TOP COPY SUCKS - ME AS WELL :P
As far as copy I styled that in an old advertising style with lots of different size and bolded text (though I got tired, so it doesn't continue through the whole thing, lol - I also just ended up copying the 'about rp' and 'rp voting history' from the official site - pfft) it's definitely different from what you might see normally and I think that works for it.

The approach to this ad is that it is for people who have never heard of RP (the vast majority of people), and so everything is rather generic, but covers the issues that he stands out on and are most important to him.

I also made it more a bit more upbeat, tried to keep the negative phrases to a minimum, definitely didn't have "warnings" or anything that chastised the viewer - no one wants to read something that says they are a failure, that their country is a failure, they want to read that someone can fix it and all you have to do is vote for them. :p

I styled it so that it can hit the 3 second, 30 second, and 3 minute viewers.

Edit: Oh ya, I forgot to ad the "paid advertisement" bit at the top *shrugs*

File is 25% of full pixel size, and is at 75% JPEG quality to keep image size and file size down.
PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE THIS WITH THE PICTURE IN LINE - VERY OBNOXIOUS
http://www.filegunner.net/uploadedimages/505494ron-paul-11.5wx21h-ad-draft1-size25pc-quality75pc.jpg

HERE ARE EXAMPLES OF THAT STYLE OF TYPOGRAPHY IN USE IN ADVERTISING - IT IS AN OLD STYLE

http://www.filegunner.net/uploadedimages/776027Barker%20Jewelry%20Ad.jpghttp://www.filegunner.net/uploadedimages/448037Brewery%20Ad.jpghttp://www.filegunner.net/uploadedimages/40760Drug%20Store%20Display.jpg
http://www.filegunner.net/uploadedimages/908410Earlham%20Ads.jpghttp://www.filegunner.net/uploadedimages/914476St.%20Nichols%20Hotel%20Ad.jpghttp://www.filegunner.net/uploadedimages/529859Winterset%20Stage%20Line%20Ad.jpg

[IHaveaDream]

We have a lot of new visitors checking out these forums for the first time. You neede to understand that we never get a second chance to make a first impression. Personally, I think the language used in this poll is juvenile and inexcusable. Many visitors will likely find it needlessly offensive. I hope the moderator will choose to remove it.

[brianbb98]

Nice ad. Under the assumption that Mr Lepard will pay for another one eh? :)

[BillyDkid]

You obviously worked very hard and covered just about everything that could be covered. I'm just concerned that it might be overwhelming.

[RPinSEAZ]

Lot's of stuff on that ad. Most people don't have the attention span to read all of that. I know I didn't. Nice work nonetheless.

[mkrfctr]

Nice ad. Under the assumption that Mr Lepard will pay for another one eh? :)

Nah, like I said when I posted the specs for people who asked, don't do it/anything unless you expect 100% for it to not be used for the USA Today ad.

I needed a project to work on to learn me some more InDesign, I can't just like sit down and try to do things, I have to actually have a project or goal to work on to figure out how to do something when I get frustrated rather than just saying 'ah screw this' and doing something else :cool:

But technically if it's running on the 21st, it can be uploaded/submitted Sunday/Monday and still be before the deadline.

[ZenX]

States' Rights needs an apostrophe. Guess it is too late now to put my editing skills to work. Apologies.

[mkrfctr]

States' Rights needs an apostrophe. Guess it is too late now to put my editing skills to work. Apologies.
This isn't the ad that was sent to USA Today to be published, so noting to be "late" about, was just for fun and an exercise in InDesign

[dsentell]

You take offense to "shit" and "dumb ass" wow, stretch those panties out of your ass, along with that stick stuck up there.

Ron Paul's message of freedom unites people. As such, this forum has all sorts of members. We have anarchists, but we also have evangelicals; we have young supporters, but we also have old . . . . You might be amazed at the variety of people if all the forum members could stand before you.

But though we are different, we all have a common mission -- to see our man become President.

Please always remember that we are united. Show respect for everyone. In turn, we will show respect for you. . . .

[hard@work]

You take offense to "shit" and "dumb ass" wow, stretch those panties out of your ass, along with that stick stuck up there.

It is not his fault you are not intelligent enough to understand his concerns.

[AFM]

I love the "paid for by Lawrence leopard" part.

[francisco]

If I was rating just the bottom section, starting with and including everything below "About Ron Paul", I would give it a 4. However, the top section actually detracts from the effectiveness.

The first and most important task of an ad is to attract the attention of the viewer. More information is not necessarily better. The dense verbage in the top section turns away anyone who is not an already-committed reader.

You can assess the validity of this assertion yourself by critically examining professionally designed large format magazine and newspaper ads. Which ones attract your interest, lead to you reading them in full, and compel you to take an action? The companies who pay large sums for mass advertising do a lot of research on what works and what doesn't, and you will rarely see congestion or overkill of information.

Read up on Ogilvie to learn more.

As it stands, about the same as the final USA Today version.

[dsentell]

Welcome to the forum, AFM! Glad to have you aboard!

[mkrfctr]

As it stands, about the same as the final USA Today version.

Yeah I wouldn't personally do it the way I did, I was actually trying to match the focus/content/kind of theme of the other one but have a bit cleaner appearance, the other one is a giant mismash of weird gfx effects, different size elements all over the place, weird giltches like the faces directions, etc etc

I'd have to think about it a lot harder on the copy portion - short of doing a really creative ad vs a 'content' ad it's gonna be kind of dry and boring - unless you pull a fox and show some scantally clad chicks and bombs blowing up and stuff.

After I get some sleep (ie 18 hours from now) I might rework the copy part more in line with how I'd want to see it.

[Suzu]

"Patriot Act" should be "PATRIOT Act" or better still "USA PATRIOT Act".

You've had this comment numerous times. Why have you ignored it?

[Suzu]

These words should never be capitalized when used in a headline:

a
the
an
by
for
and
but
in
to
with

I voted "2" in the poll because of these errors and the misspelling of PATRIOT Act.

[Suzu]

Fundraising should not be hyphenated (not capitalized).

[Suzu]

The phone number is wrong. It should be 1-877-RON-2008

You've had this comment numerous times as well....

[mkrfctr]

I haven't had any comments and I didn't bother to read the giant threads on the actual ad either so, um...

fundraising one bugs me, because every spelling dictionary says it's wrong... even on dictionary.com the hyphenated one is primary http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=fundraising

[Man from La Mancha]

It's always good to have many creative attempts as possible, never know when some rich person or pac will run with one.



http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/9435/blackwsmallyh7.gif (teaparty07.com)..http://img211.imageshack.us/img211/8947/brighton7gs5.gif (teaparty07.com)..copy,paste,linked to teaparty07.com , either one, only 1 million people at $100

[jb4ronpaul]

wonderful job

[LibertyEagle]

mkrfctr,

Nice job. However, I'm not sure that the background you have chosen will come out well in newsprint. Perhaps a flyer?

Beyond that, your foul language is not appreciated. As IHaveaDream told you, we have one chance to make a first impression. We already know of people who have come to this forum to find out more about Ron Paul before they made a decision, and have left with a terrible opinion of this campaign. All because of the rude, foul language. Tell me, do you want to be responsible for losing Paul votes? If you do, keep it up. You are doing a wonderful job towards that end. :mad:

[westmich4paul]

I liked it. Was it long? Maybe a bit but I personally want to know as much as I can about my candidate. I would have definately put something in there about the military donations. Also I am not going to bash ya around like alot of people seem to want to do because I for one do not live in a glass house but yeah I would really refrain from the foul language. I am sure we have young Ron supporters on here and well if ya put in on your Myspace thats another thing but just class it up a bit in here. My issue is with the Mod's not getting sick of the vulgar language which is still rampant in here even after they kindly asked people to tone it down. Your a Mod for a reason and thats to keep the peace so every now and then you might have to crack the whip a bit, it's ok we will be allright and the forums will be better for it. But all in all good job! I liked it.

[Suzu]

I haven't had any comments and I didn't bother to read the giant threads on the actual ad either so, um...

fundraising one bugs me, because every spelling dictionary says it's wrong... even on dictionary.com the hyphenated one is primary http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=fundraising

My mistake. But the critique itself still stands. The only time you capitalize those words in a headline is when they are the first word. I'm right about the other stuff I mentioned as well.

[Mark Rushmore]

You might want to take out Saint Lepard's name on this test one. Just on the principle that it might get spread around in its current form and, although I can't see any particular reason why, he might not want to be associated with it.

[James R]

Well, here's my effort. Feel free to say whatever you want, no hurt feelings to be had here. I do ask though that you keep the arguing down so thread doesn't get moved.

As to the design I kind of started with the RP pic and then the BG images, I did grab and work with the same founder pics as in the other ad, but ultimately couldn't think of a good way to incorporate them into the design or the copy.

As far as copy I styled that in an old advertising style with lots of different size and bolded text (though I got tired, so it doesn't continue through the whole thing, lol - I also just ended up copying the 'about rp' and 'rp voting history' from the official site - pfft) it's definitely different from what you might see normally and I think that works for it.

The approach to this ad is that it is for people who have never heard of RP (the vast majority of people), and so everything is rather generic, but covers the issues that he stands out on and are most important to him.

I also made it more a bit more upbeat, tried to keep the negative phrases to a minimum, definitely didn't have "warnings" or anything that chastised the viewer - no one wants to read something that says they are a failure, that their country is a failure, they want to read that someone can fix it and all you have to do is vote for them. :p

I styled it so that it can hit the 3 second, 30 second, and 3 minute viewers.

Edit: Oh ya, I forgot to ad the "paid advertisement" bit at the top *shrugs*

File is 25% of full pixel size, and is at 75% JPEG quality to keep image size and file size down.
PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE THIS WITH THE PICTURE IN LINE - VERY OBNOXIOUS
http://www.filegunner.net/uploadedimages/505494ron-paul-11.5wx21h-ad-draft1-size25pc-quality75pc.jpg

I'm glad that you take criticism well because I passionately hate the ad! I really cannot stand it when practically every other sentence is a different sized font. But your ad does more thant that. It makes every other WORD a different size! To me, rapidly switching font size is very unprofessional and is to be minimized.

Furthermore, people who want to read just the important parts (if they don't intend to read the whole thing) will be so confused about what really is the important text (since all of it tries to be bold) they simply do not read the ad at all. I am in that group. I didn't want to read the whole thing and when you don't direct my eyes on what to look at I simply didn't read any of it

[work2win]

Step 1: Please remove the profanity.


Bottom half - "4"
-clean
-clear
-organized


Top half - "1"
-font size, and bold text, that is seriously inconsistent. This is distracting, and looks unorganized
-not enough distinction between points, heading, title, etc. They all look the same.


What you want is an organized look at first glance. The headings and supporting text should be easily distinguishable from each other. You have different options including indenting, bold, italics, underline, and font size. Take what you have and try to work it into this mold and streamline each point a little. You also might want to consider removing a couple of the 8 points to lighten the load. Its a great start and has lots of potential!

[mkrfctr]

Can't remove the "profanity" - it's in the poll part, which I cannot edit, I told Brian he can if he has the ability to, but ... *shrugs*

James is the first to break this request "PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE THIS WITH THE PICTURE IN LINE - VERY OBNOXIOUS" - lol. There are no italics tho *wink*

UPDATED FIRST POST WITH EXAMPLES OF THAT TYPOGRAPHY USE IN ADVERTISING

Yeah, I did the bottom 4 inches of my own design, while I was still coherent - then the copy up top was put up there in the same style as the original - content oriented - I think its a very poor marketing tact, doesn't really fit with anything that captures attention. The founding fathers one had an attention getter, but however than it was snooze city with a side of slap-dashery.

Now that I've gotten some sleep I'm working on redoing it a bit, the whole top is scrapped and I'll be doing it in 11.5x17 first (good for larger flyers).

And suzu thanks for the comments, 1-877-Ron-Paul is a valid phone number though just FYI.

[unklejman]

I'm afraid that you did not achieve the older style typography that you say you were going for. Even in those ads the text is the same size word for word on a line. Those older ads have a lot more style going on than your's. I know there is a lot of info to present with RP but you need to revise how your approaching it.

[dircha]

I voted "You're a dumb ass" because I laughed when I read the poll option, sorry.

But more seriously, I think the little section at the bottom where you have the gigantic "Ron Paul President" and a huge picture of him in my opinion are several times more valuable than the length top two thirds in terms of getting the message out.

I think a better ad would be like this but use only Ron Paul's picture, the "Ron Paul President 2008" headline, the Tea Party December 16th information, and the two lists of About Ron Paul and Overview of His Record.

What do you think?

[dircha]

Now that I've gotten some sleep I'm working on redoing it a bit, the whole top is scrapped and I'll be doing it in 11.5x17 first (good for larger flyers).

And suzu thanks for the comments, 1-877-Ron-Paul is a valid phone number though just FYI.

Missed this! Sounds like you're already doing kind of what I had in mind. Cool.

[amakris]

Don't center all of your text. You need a few different ident lines that the entire page follows.

[jp5065]

WAY BETTER than the one that is going to actually run in USA today, but still has too many words for me.

[JMO]

I like the one that is going to be run in the paper. this one has too many words for a AD for a presidential candidate.

[wisconsinite]

I'm afraid that you did not achieve the older style typography that you say you were going for. Even in those ads the text is the same size word for word on a line. Those older ads have a lot more style going on than your's. I know there is a lot of info to present with RP but you need to revise how your approaching it.

++1

Sorry, but the top portion of your ad is just not pleasing to the eye. If you were going for the old-time look, you need to use old-time fonts. And like unklejman said, keep all the words within a line the same font size.

Your ad looks like you just couldn't make up your mind which size text to use.