Good Usage of Design in an Advertisement
In looking for an ad design for this project, I took the opportunity to step away from my computer and thumbed through some publications in my living room. The monthly “Costco Connection” magazine was one of the selections and was full of various types of ads for products carried in the store. This Woolite® ad was designed by “RB” in 2019 and placed in the January 2020 issue. I found a copy of the issue on Costco’s website and added a link to the picture.
There is a good usage of alignment in this Woolite® advertisement. The brand name is centered on the top of the page and immediately draws your eye. The two different groups of text are aligned first on the right of the page and then the second group is aligned left alongside the bottle of Woolite®. The alignment usage allows the eye to flow easily down the text on the advertisement and helps to make the page feel organized.
The various items and text on this page are nicely grouped together. The brand title is in a good place: centered on the top of the page and a little above the rest of the information about the product. The subtitle of “Clothes Look Like New” is grouped together with a short description of what is meant by “new.” The text is also laid out in an arc that follows the shape of the bottle. At the bottom of the page, you will find any extra important information the brand felt it was important to share with the audience.
Woolite® detergent uses a blue gradient behind the large, white letters to make the name stand out on the page. The advertisement also pulls colors of blue, golden yellow, and white from the bottle to highlight information. The same blue gradient that is found behind the Woolite® name is used on the bottle as well as a background for the golden yellow text. The blue and yellow are complementary colors.
As mentioned before, the advertisement uses the blue gradient behind the name of white which is brightly contrasted. In addition, the golden yellow and the blue gradient are good examples of contrast to the other white text on the page. The background of a closet of clothes, while giving a slightly muddled look, allows the detergent bottle and the text to contrast on the page. While the font is the same, contrast is used in the different sizing of the text.
Repetition is used on the page mostly in the way the text is laid out. In the first grouping of text, the header is slightly larger than the subtext, but the subtext on both the top and bottom groupings are similar in their style and size. The rest of the repetition on the page comes from the repeated use of white, yellow, and blue.
Overall, the advertisement is clean and easy to read. Your eye is first drawn to the name of the brand and then to the benefits of using Woolite® for your washing needs. The product is appropriately displayed and the information is in easy to read colors and placement which is informative without being overwhelming. A reader of this ad will very quickly know what it is for, why they believe their product to be a good one, and also gives the consumer a few good reasons to go and look for the detergent in the laundry aisle.
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