Keep it Simple
Whether I’m watching television, driving on the highway or opening a magazine, I am exposed to advertisements. In a consumer world this constant exposure has now become the norm. However, with the immense bombardment of advertisements, it has become increasingly difficult to grab the public’s attention. Having ads that are overwhelmed with information doesn’t help either.
Companies always want to make their brand as attractive as possible, but sometimes the detailed information behind the product is not worth mentioning. Cramming too much information onto an advertisement usually produces more harm than good. When I look around and examine the ads that grasp my attention best, I begin to see a common trend; simplicity works. This is especially so for a company logo.
Graphic designer Lucien Bernhard pioneered the idea of simplicity in advertising when designing a poster for the Priester match company. His initial concept featured a setting made up of a checkered table cloth, an ash tray with a lit cigar emitting smoke in the shape a of woman, and finally the matches on the table. After analyzing his own design, Lucien began to reduce certain elements one-by-one from his ad as his scene contained too many distractions. All that was left in the ad were the matches with no other image supporting the product but the brand name and the connotations of the brand itself. Hence, the Priester match poster is a great example of how sometimes it’s best to just “keep it simple.”
