Small business owner’s guide to ad design and layout

More businesses are using regional advertising brochures, neighborhood flyers, and newsletters to reach out to local customers. Although creative options are unlimited, there are a few guidelines to be aware of when designing a high impact ad. Whether you hire a graphic designer or opt to do it yourself, here are tips to maximize effectiveness of color ads, black and white ads, and small ads.

For large to medium ads, follow these steps when laying out the ad:

First, grab the reader’s attention with a large, sharp and bright product photo. If you don’t have a high quality photo, hire a photographer. Your photo could ‘make or break’ the ad. This picture should occupy roughly two thirds of the ad space.

Next in size is the ad headline. Keep the headline brief, just a few words. The headline sets the tone of the ad. Reserve the details for the main text body.

Now comes the main text that conveys information about the product. For this ad size, dark text on a light background is the best and easiest to read. No less than an 8-point font size should be used; a 10-point font size is optimal. It’s very important to leave enough white space around the text body so the readers have a place to rest their eyes while scanning the ad.

Last, add your logo and contact information. Usually, this is located at the bottom so as not to detract from the other graphic elements in the ad. By emphasizing the product with a good photo, main headline, and descriptive text, we’ve (hopefully) created enough interest so the reader now looks for contact information to make a purchase.

For small ads:

Ads less than 2 x 2 inches are composed mostly of text and maybe an illustration. A photo won’t be effective with an ad this size. Because less text is used, a dark background with light colored lettering is very noticeable for a small ad. Consider either black or shades of dark to medium gray for the background with white text. As for a larger ad, your illustration and/or headline should be the dominant focus with logo and contact info next.


View samples of ads in various sizes, color and black and white ads.