Often in the Yellow Pages business, the only information the artist is given is the name, number and few other details, as was the case here.  The name "Big Red" obviously drove the look of the ad, with a red theme and typefaces that are big and pop off the page.  Rounding out the ad is a big sandwich front and center.  The bold colors and fonts give an energetic look to the ad help to stir the customer's appetite.

 

The client told the sales representative that this ad was just the look he wanted, with its boisterous feel that matched his personality and business, and would help keep the ad from getting lost on a page of advertisements.

Dentists can be scary, especially for children, so I wanted to give a sense of ease and happiness with this ad.  I used bold colors, a large "SMILE" to reinforce the smiling kids, and playful fonts to let the customer know this is a place where your children will be happy to see the dentist.

Typically, people do not think of a mobile home park as their first choice to live, so I wanted to work with the name to give the ad an upscale feel.  By activating the name with the image of the forest background, and using light typefaces and a warm gradient, I was able to give the ad a peaceful, airy feeling.  Gone is the imagery of mobile homes sandwiched against one another and in its place is a feeling of wide-open expanses.

Many of the ads in the Catering heading of the Yellow Pages directories are lots of pictures of table settings and plates of food, so in order to stand out against other ads on the page, I decided to use a lot of solid color in this ad.  I used the chef's hat to give a sense of professionalism and quality, and used used the colors from the picture to tie the whole ad together.

With this ad, the customer really wanted to make the environmental friendliness the point of the ad.  So, I chose the mountain background to give the ad depth and an expansive, airy feeling, even though there is lots of text on the page.

 

The peak of the mountain helps to draw the eye from the name down to the GreenEarth cleaning logo and information, while the use of blues, subtle inner glows and rounded typefaces lend a crisp, clean feeling to the ad.

At the time this ad was made, the Motorola RAZR was the hot cellular phone to have, so I made it front and center, setting it at the angle to break the lines of the ad and draw the reader's attention.

Here is an example where the imagery helped to sell a larger size ad.  The customer was ecstatic that the chainsaw was actively sawing off part of their name.  There were no pictures of a tree stump in our art catalog, so I was able to recreate one in the upper right by taking a picture of a tree, drawing a stump into place and remaking the background in Photoshop.

In this case, I wanted to play with the sense of fun and activeness of swimming.  By placing the information to interact with the swimmers in the pool, the customer's eye is drawn from the title, to the copy, and finally the telephone numbers.

Here, playing off the name Harvest Time, I used the wheat field imagery and lots of open space to give the subject matter the sense of weight and spirituality it deserves.

This ad was under the Painting heading in one of our directories, so that's what decided its imagery.  I continued the angles of the customer's logo with those of the house to make the ad more dynamic and draw the eye inward. Though there is not much information in the ad itself, I was able to sell the customer this larger size ad because they really enjoyed the energy of the layout.