For one of my classes we had to do a redesign of a bad print ad. Directly below you can see the original ad and my interpretation of why it is bad. Then you will see two examples of how I fixed it.
ABOVE IS THE ORIGINAL AD- I DID NOT DO THIS.
The Original Ad appeared on the inside back cover of Urban Outfitters Late Fall 2011 Catalog. It is for a contest where readers submit the way they wore (and styled) Urban Outfitters' clothes. There are a lot of Graphic Design no no's in this ad. So much so, it made me wonder if they had interns (or the CEO's High School age daughter) doing this catalog. In the paper version of this ad it was super difficult to read the main "THE WAY YOU WORE IT" text because of the light background of the photo, and it is distorted in a strange way. The vertical wavy text on a path giving you the website address is annoying to read, and looks very amatueur especially with the scalloped edge border. The explanation snippet has text that leans back, straight and forward for no reason. Also the whole ad is bottom heavy with a strange amount of space at the top.
The Original Ad appeared on the inside back cover of Urban Outfitters Late Fall 2011 Catalog. It is for a contest where readers submit the way they wore (and styled) Urban Outfitters' clothes. There are a lot of Graphic Design no no's in this ad. So much so, it made me wonder if they had interns (or the CEO's High School age daughter) doing this catalog. In the paper version of this ad it was super difficult to read the main "THE WAY YOU WORE IT" text because of the light background of the photo, and it is distorted in a strange way. The vertical wavy text on a path giving you the website address is annoying to read, and looks very amatueur especially with the scalloped edge border. The explanation snippet has text that leans back, straight and forward for no reason. Also the whole ad is bottom heavy with a strange amount of space at the top.
This is my favorite redesign I did for this ad. All the same text was used, and original ad dimensions are the same. You can see that all the text is legible and integrates better into the photo. The path for "THE WAY YOU WORE IT" and the web address follow the angle of the bar making it feel cohesive. The photo was snagged from the Urban Outfitters blog, I believe I modified it in photoshop to look a bit more instagrammy. I think my ad captures the quirky spirit and youthful image that UO is striving for.
Here is another version of the ad I did. This was my original concept, as I felt their one photo ad felt empty and did not scream contest to me. I wanted to include young men in this ad as well, to make them feel more inclined to enter. All photos were snagged from the Urban Outfitters blog except for the girl with glasses and a hat -this was snagged of a friend's facebook photo album. All photos were modified to look instagrammy or even more instagrammy. One thing I really liked about this version was the background shift between THE WAY and YOU WORE IT.
A side by side of the original and mine. You be the judge.
