If Everything Is Important,
Nothing Is Important
Make the logo bigger. Make the phone number bigger. Make “SALE” bigger. Bold that. Put a box around this. Can we make that red? And maybe add an exclamation point!
Congratulations.
Now nothing is big.
It happens all the time in advertising. A business has a lot to say, and understandably, every piece of information feels important. The phone number is important. The website is important. The list of services is important. The logo is certainly important. Then there is the sale, the deadline, the address, the financing information and the call to action. Before long, everything in the advertisement is competing for attention.
The problem is not necessarily that there is too much information. The bigger problem is that the reader has no idea which information matters most.
Good graphic design relies on something called visual hierarchy. That may sound like design-school terminology, but the idea is actually very simple. Your eye needs to know where to go first.
Every effective advertisement needs a boss.
Maybe the boss is “50% OFF.” Maybe it is “NOW HIRING.” It could be a photograph of the product, an upcoming event date or a headline announcing “AUCTION SATURDAY.” Whatever the most important message is, the design should make that message obvious. Something else should come second, something should come third, and some information is perfectly capable of doing its job without screaming for attention.
That order is what guides a reader through an advertisement.
One of the easiest ways to destroy that order is to make everything bigger. When businesses want something noticed, the immediate solution is often to increase its size. Then something else needs more attention, so that gets bigger too. Eventually six different elements are competing for first place, and the advertisement becomes a shouting match.
Graphic designers have far more tools than size. Placement, contrast, type weight, color, spacing, photography and white space can all be used to direct attention. Those elements quietly tell the reader, “Look here first. Now look here. Next, read this.”
When visual hierarchy is working properly, the reader should not even notice it happening. The eye simply follows the path the design created.
Your Logo Probably Doesn’t Need to Win
Here comes the dangerous part.
Your logo does not necessarily need to be the biggest thing in your advertisement.
There. I said it.
A logo has an important job. It identifies the business. However, unless the purpose of the advertisement is to provide people with the exciting opportunity to stare at your logo, it probably is not the primary message.
If you are having a 50% off sale, “50% OFF” may deserve more attention. If you are selling a house, the photograph of the house may be the strongest element. If you are announcing a grand opening, “GRAND OPENING” probably deserves center stage.
Your logo still matters. It simply does not have to tackle everything else in the advertisement and pin it to the ground.
The same principle applies to phone numbers, websites and addresses. These things are necessary because they tell an interested customer what to do next. They do not necessarily need to be the first thing a person notices. A giant phone number is not particularly useful if nobody noticed what you were selling in the first place.
White Space Is Not Wasted Space
Another common temptation appears whenever there is an empty spot in an advertisement.
We paid for that space. We should put something there!
Not necessarily.
White space, which simply means an area without competing text or graphics, can be one of the hardest-working parts of a design. It separates information, gives the reader’s eye somewhere to rest and helps important elements stand out.
It also keeps seven unrelated things from looking like they are fighting in a Walmart parking lot.
Sometimes adding another photograph, another badge, another line of copy or another graphic does not make an advertisement more valuable. It simply gives the reader one more thing to process.
Sometimes the most valuable thing you can add to a design is nothing.
Information and Communication Are Not the Same Thing
Imagine having ten seconds to tell someone something important. Would you try to give that person 37 separate pieces of information?
Probably not.
Yet businesses frequently ask advertisements to do exactly that.
Every service gets listed. Every product gets mentioned. Every certification gets included. There are multiple phone numbers, an address, a website, a QR code, social media icons, hours of operation and a paragraph explaining the history of the company since 1947.
Technically, everything is there.
But what did the reader actually learn?
That is the difference between information and communication.
An advertisement can contain an enormous amount of information while communicating almost nothing. If readers cannot quickly determine what you are offering and why they should care, having every possible detail on the page will not solve the problem.
This is also why removing something from an advertisement can sometimes make it stronger. Editing is part of design. Deciding what does not need to be there can be just as important as deciding what does.
Try the Squint Test
There is a wonderfully simple graphic-design trick that anyone can try.
Look at your advertisement and squint.
Seriously.
Do not try to read it. Just look at the overall design and notice which elements remain visually dominant when the smaller details become difficult to see.
What stands out?
That is approximately where the visual power of your advertisement lives.
Now ask yourself whether that is the thing you most want a potential customer to notice.
If the answer is yes, the design is probably headed in the right direction. If your eye immediately goes to something relatively unimportant, you may have discovered a problem. If the headline, photograph, logo, phone number, website, starburst, border and six different boxes are all demanding equal attention, you have discovered an even bigger one.
Decide What Wins
Before an advertisement is designed, there is one question worth answering:
If the customer remembers only one thing from this ad, what should it be?
That answer should drive the design.
Give the most important message the strongest position. Then decide what the reader needs to know next, and what comes after that. Let the supporting information actually support instead of forcing every element to compete for the lead role.
Not everything needs to shout.
Some information can speak normally. Some can whisper. Some can sit quietly at the bottom of the advertisement and wait for the person who needs it.
The goal of graphic design is not to make every element noticeable at the same time. It is to organize information so the right things are noticed in the right order.
Because when everything in an advertisement is fighting to be seen, the customer should not have to referee the fight.
Give their eyes somewhere to go. If everything is important, nothing is important.
