Online+Advertising+Design

=  **Online Advertising Design**  = For this assignment I contacted a start-up company that I recently became aware about called Notesolution.com. They are an online company that allow students from several of the major Ontario universities plus McGill, to sign-up for free and share their notes with other students. Users get credits for uploading their school notes, less for lectures and more for study guides. Then from those credits users can either download notes for a class they need, or they can redeem their credits for rewards like gift certificates or an ipod. I thought this was a great idea for an online business, and because they are just getting off the ground their main source of advertisement is through social media and newspaper articles written about them.

The three online advertisements that I chose to create were a button (125 x 125), a banner (468 x 60), and a skyscraper (160 x 600). Each one of these ads could fit in most websites as the dimensions are to regulation standards, and they are each of varying sizes therefore able to accommodate different spaces. All of the advertisements are in accordance with a central campaign theme, which is recognizable through repetition of, one of the companies slogans "Getting a 4.0 Just Became Possible", a sky blue background color, website url, the use of a pencil which is displayed on the main page of the companies site, and the companies logo which is reduced to only the first letter in the skyscraper ad. These central elements create a unity among the three advertisements although each has its own unique aspects as well.

The main purpose behind this advertisement campaign is to bring awareness to Note Solution's brand and to get visitors to the site. That is why I attempted to highlight features that I believed would be enticing to students. In the button ad there is a star on the bottom right stating, "100% free for students", even though I know that stating 'free' in an ad is sometimes controversal, I believe that by saying it is only free because you are a student will leave behind any worry that the site is a scam. Also in the button ad, there is another one of the companies slogans which is "share notes, study better, earn rewards" which really gets the point across to the viewer as to what this company is trying to do.



In the banner ad, I wanted to highlight the main features, like the logo, the slogan, the url, and the pencil, but I also wanted to bring in some images used on the companies website. Because the banner ad is a bigger space to work with, I decided that utilizing the images which you first see when entering Note Solutions site which describe their business would be beneficial. There are three images which explain simply how the website works, they say on them "download to study smarter, upload to share knowledge, and earn rewards by uploading and referring friends".



Lastly, with the skyscraper ad, I again added the significant aspects, but had to adjust certain facets due to the dimensions of the advertisement. The pencil now faces upright instead of across the page, and the url is no longer written on the pencil but at the bottom of the ad. Also the companies logo did not fit correctly as it is horizontally long, therefore I utilized just the beginning letter of the slogan on the notepad instead. Viewers could figure out the companies name through the url, but if they do not see that it may keep them guessing about the company, until they discover one of the other ads. Another prominent feature is the image used. It is the third image used in the banner ad, which states "earn rewards by uploading and referring friends". I thought this image would be best to lure students to want to know more about the company. This last ad is the most ambiguous as it leaves more information open to be discovered by viewers.



Overall, the three online advertisements I created for Note Solution are meant to be visually appealing, grab online users attention, and gets viewers interested in the brand and to want to learn more. The colors and design I believe flow well together and appeal to a younger audience. If executed hopefully the advertisements would attract new clientele.

Here are links to the illustrator files so you can see the advertisements with better resolution.