Magazine Cover for Car Dealership
This is a Magazine Cover for a car delaership, I've designed 2 more covers and they're still not sure, they are particularly picky, and they like the design to be as clean as possible, i just hope i'm not making it boring, I considered an image with a different background like the car somewhere else, but it turns out it gets too busy to place any copy, any suggestions to make this better?
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UPDATE: THE LICENCE PLATE
I know the licence plate looks kind of fake, my boss (not a designer, but a salesman) decided that he was going to do the licence plate. so i'm stuck with it!
ouch!
bosses...! better off leaving the front plate blank...
the layout, colors, and proportions all work OK, but I wish the photo had more action. It should be exciting! New cars are Exciting! Especially sporty looking cars. If they have any action photos for you to choose from you should look into them, I know they probably get them from Acura, Acura prob has better ones, and may also have usage guidelines. If you can't incorporate the exitement through the photo, then you'll need to do it with the text.
i agree
Your right, it does lack excitement, the other bad thing is that since they want to personalize the license plate with the name of the recipient, i'm stuck with the boring pictures, but it's a good idea to try to get the text to add a little punch the overall look, i'll try that, thanks.
For me, there's slightly too
For me, there's slightly too much padding on the sides. Colours are really nice.
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UPDATED PORTFOLIO
www.jhousedesign.com
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i did not notice!
thanks for your comment, i didn't realize i was leaving too much space on the sides. Thanks for bringing that to my attention!
how much space is it?
You don't want it too close, or it could be trimmed off. This image is cropped to the trim right? we don't want to make assuptions based on bleed... minimum 1/4" empty space to trim on all sides and minimum 1/4" of bleed (not counting tabs if any)
doc margins were 0.5
I think i was leaving 1/2 i didn't realize it was too much, i am going to change it to leave 1/4, see if it looks more normal! thanks.
Play up the license plate
You could create a vector version of the state's plate you are sending to & make a more believable font for the name. It would draw more attention to the plate in the layout but that may not be a bad thing. I do quite a bit of direct mail where we fake the state's plate and have each piece of mail personalized with the recipient's last name. Believe it or not, it works. Especially on a nice vehicle like the new TL-people are more apt to hold on to the piece.
license plate
That's a great idea, thanks for the advice, one thing i don't understand however, is each persons name or last name is different in length/ has different number of characters so, how do you still run the risk of having some names look terrible, I don't know. Would it help to make it wider than a regular license plate even if it doesn't look too real ?, I'm gonna change that lousy license plate my boss designed even if he gets upset.
*I have an updated version, how do you post comments with pictures here?
thanks to everyone for their help, it is greatly appreciated!
Variable Data Printing
Fortunately, I believe the software used to do the variable printing should have features that alleviate this issue, that is more of a production/print programmer issue. Any time you have the fortune of being able to use variable data printing, you will most likely get a much greater response to the piece. Which, in turn makes the advertisement a success. I think that sometimes we all get too concerned with aesthetics, when we should also consider the return on investment for our client. We all want to produce the next great piece for our portfolio, but it is also wise to think like a business person and incorporate marketing strategy. Good Luck!
purple background sucks...
purple background sucks... try a different color, maybe a green?
gray text is hard to read
something about the right wheel is off... like, it's been chopped off or something.
bars on top and bottom make the layout awkward, use something different
i keep looking in the car-- maybe make it darker in there so my eye isnt drawn to it
I don't like the TL logo overlapping the car
maybe try a whole new color pallette... something warm maybe?
thank you everyone!
I want to thank everyone for their suggestions, I am working on a better version of the cover right now, and i'll post a new critique to see what you think, I appreciate your help.