5 Compelling Newspaper Ad Design Tips

The main intent of a newspaper ad design is to grab your readers’ attention and persuade them to take action. No matter what type of newspaper you’re advertising in, the overall layout will significantly impact your ad’s success. 

To ensure your newspaper ad achieves your desired results, follow these design tips to help you further. 

1. Minimalist Design

Keeping things simple is always better when designing your newspaper ad. In the past, newspapers have always looked busy. Therefore, creating a design that looks crowded may not help your ad stand out. 

If you truly want your newspaper ad design to be eye-catching, a minimal or modern look will be most effective. 

Modern designs use lots of white space, emphasizing images and text within the page. Using this concept works since it makes the newspaper look less cluttered. 

Essentially, it helps to space your text and images, so there is enough white space in between.

2. Ensure It Flows

When you consider the layout of your ad, the design must have a good hierarchy and flow. Most readers skim over an advertisement if the format doesn’t flow from the title to the end. 

Some factors that influence this are the size, logo location, copy placement and amount of whitespace. Suppose you’re placing an ad in a large space. Here are some things to consider in design:

• Your image should cover the most space in your ad — at least 60% to 70%.

• Place your body copy below the main image since people read from left to right and top to bottom.

• Ensure you include the company logo in the bottom right corner. This only needs to take up about 5% of the ad space.

3. Alignment

Aligning your newspaper ad is a crucial aspect of design. While it may seem like extra work, the effort will be well worth it in the long run.

Aligning your design ensures that your ad will capture your readers’ attention. Therefore, these are the areas of alignment to consider:

• Columns: Ensure your columns are the same size width and that you align them correctly from top to bottom. In other words, you should space them evenly in between. 

• Images: When placing more than one image in your design, they need to be straight and lined up with each other accordingly.

• Titles: Whether you choose a horizontal or vertical title, ensure they are centered correctly over the columns.

• Spacing: Suppose you have space on the left side of your design, ensure you have the same amount of space on the right side. Spacing between the title and the text also needs to be even.

• Maintain image aspect ratios: If you need to decrease the image’s size to make it fit within a particular space, avoid shrinking it. Instead, you can crop the picture so it looks more naturally fitting.

4. Color Scheme

Avoid using too many colors in your ad’s design, as it can impact the results of your ad. When you use lots of colors, the ad tends to look disorganized. 

Instead, you can keep it simple by choosing two to three colors and finding out which of them work well together.

For instance, sticking with the brand’s color scheme is always a good idea. You can incorporate them into your text. Or, you could even use a color from the image and have it match the text.

One tip to remember is that newspaper colors always print in a darker scheme than how you see them on a computer screen. Therefore, it’s best to lighten the shading to refine your ad when it’s ready to print.

5. Use an Attention-Grabbing Element

It’s important to be mindful of your readers and how you can grab their attention. The main intent of the reader is to read about the latest events happening within their community. As a result, newspaper advertisements can be easy to miss, especially when they don’t stand out.

Therefore, it’s essential to consider what possible elements will capture your readers’ attention. If you include a catchy title or a humorous image within your design, you’ll have a higher chance of getting a response. 

Make Your Mark On the Page

Your ads will only be as effective as the effort you put into them when making your design. Consider sketching your ideas on paper first so you can easily communicate your concept to the client. Finally, keep these tips in mind so you can easily approach your newspaper ad design.