Less is More

After reading the Design Basics excerpt from Golombsky and Hagen’s White Space is Not Your Enemy, I thought about what companies advertisement’s always stand out to me. The first three companies that came to my mind were Apple, Chick-fil-A, and Nike. These three companies are all have strong advertisements and are incredibly successful. This correlation goes to show that the media associated with your company can have a large impact on success.

  This iPhone 6 add from Apple exhibits several positive qualities discussed in the Design Basics reading. First, there is a focal point in the middle of the page that emphasizes the phone. This is the focal point because the rest of the advertisement is very simple, so your eye is immediately drawn to the image of the phone. Apple also only used one font in this advertisement that is easy to read, which is much better than having an array of busy fonts competing with each other. They were also not afraid to use white space which makes the ad very clean looking overall.

Chick-fil-A advertisements use two very busy fonts, but they consistently use these two, and only these two fonts, so it works because the customer recognizes these distinctive fonts. Using a combination of these fonts and their signature cow, a focal point is established.  Similar to Apple, Chick-fil-a is not afraid of white space and always has a simple background in their advertisements. Also similar to Apple, they limit their color use to avoid making the

ad too busy.

Nike ads can always be recognized by their signature font and Nike swoosh. Many of their ads showcase an image of a particular product, athlete, or sports scene with a bold statement and Nike swoosh somewhere on the page. They create a focal point by using a simple background and letting their product be the main focus. They also consistently use the same bold font, which makes is easier for customers to recognize. Most of their ads have text, but it is not an overwhelming amount and is usually black and white.  A pop of color usually comes from the image of their product.

 One interesting thing to note is that design basics suggested to not center everything, but all of these companies seem to do that quite often. This works with these companies because they are widely recognized and don’t have to say much for people to know what the ad is for. They also all have very simplistic designs, so really only a few things end up being centered.

Are all of these companies successful because of their strong media production? You can’t contribute their success completely to advertisements, but these companies are all extremely successful and their advertisements share a considerable amount of similarities while attempting to sell very different products. Even though these three companies produce very different products, I believe that the similar qualities found in their advertisements and similar rates of success prove that the media associated with your company can influence your success.