Ads I wish I designed: Merry Maids

Posted November 11th, 2009 by Kimberly Dowd

Part of my job at the Courier-Post involves designing online advertising. I’m not sure how exactly that came about other than when I started there, I was one of two people with Photoshop.

Back then, the most common (and I believe only) ad size on our site was this:

Now as monitors get larger, web sites get larger and of course the ads get larger. Someone has to make sure the lowly web folk get paid.

Anyway, I saw THIS ad today:

and I totally wish I designed that. I have no formal design experience, but I know that ads shouldn’t be cluttered, and the main point of a banner ad is to get someone to click on it.

(It’s for Merry Maids, by the way.)

I wish I could express that better to people who want me to make the artwork smaller so I can fit their fax number on the ad.

**

Dream 1: There is a form I need to fill out for work and the deadline is midnight. It’s about 11:55 pm, and I’m at work, dashing through the cubicle maze in the dark and trying desperately to find that form. I’m running into chairs and desks and filing cabinets and I’m in a full-fledged panic.

Then my work PC suddenly goes into an 8-bit display mode, and begins to run programs. It’s been hacked! “It’s the South Koreans,” an unfamiliar IT person tells me. “They’re always doing this sh-t.”

Dream 2: I’m a lawyer trying to get the death penalty overturned for somebody. It’s a race against the clock as they are literally prepping my client for execution while I recite my plea to the judge.

This dream is courtesy of the execution of the Virginia sniper. I’m anti-death penalty, no matter what, so whenever a capital punishment sentence is carried out, I’m subconsciously very upset about it.

Tags: advertising, design