Assignment #3: Newspaper Ad

After a short break, we pressed towards our next project consisting of an ad in the university paper, the Collegio. First we had to figure out the demensions, and luckily our prefessor was open to helping us when figuring this out. The way newspaper sizes are measured are not as simple inches by inches; instead newspapers  measure columns by inches (width by height) and each newspaper has different sizes for thier columns. For example a 5x7 ad in a newspaper is 5 COLUMNS wide by 7 inches tall. 5 Columns doesn't mean 5 inches; in the Collegio the sizes of the columns are shown below.

# of Columns	1	2	3	4	5	6
Actual Size of Column (inches)	1.83”	3.79”	5.75”	7.71”	9.67”	11.63”

Restrictions to this project were based on price with a budget of $197 dollars. Running color for any ad in the Collegio costs $200 dollars alone, so this adds another restriction with only using black and white. The other obligation was to figure out a target market for the ad. Since the Collegio is only distributed only throughout Pittsburg, Kansas; I needed to find a local business to create the ad for. I decided on advertising for South East Kansas Recycling Center located here in Pittsburg, KS. So the only other factor to figure into my ad was how big of an ad I was going to create while keeping within my bugdet. To figure out the cost of my desired size ad I used the formula below:

#of columns(width)  X  #of inches(height) = B

B  X  $4.00 = Cost

I decided on a 3 column 7 inch ad. Cost figuration is shown below.

3 colmns x 7inches = 21

21 x $4.00 = $84.00

$197.00 - $84.00 = $113 left over in budget.

So with $113.00 left over, the same ad could be run for two weeks in stead of one. So for 2 weeks in the Collegio, a 3 column x 7 inch ad would cost $168, still under budget and with $29.00 to spare!

Now with the demensions decided and within budget, I could start designing my ad for SEK Recycling Center. I needed a call to action, so I used "visit us @:sekr.org" to get them to go to the SEK website to find more information to thier operation. I also needed to use a bitmap image (drawn and then scanned into my computer) in my ad which is shown below.

With a few revisions after on-screen critiques, I was really satisfied with the outcome of the project. I was really proud of having the design of the bitmap go off the ad to where it pops more. Once again a very good project to learn from, but a lot easier than the direct mail piece.