How to get creative and grab attention

Posted Sunday, 7 February 2010 | Category: Branding and marketing ideas | Comments |

Design is all about creative communication. In this article we have outlined a few techniques to grab attention when designing marketing campaigns.

1. Communicate visually

Statistical picture posters
Designer Toby Ng Kwong To set himself the challenge of communicating statistical data in a visual and accessible manner through a series of "picture" posters. He writes:

If the world were a village of 100 people, how would the composition be? This set of 20 posters is built on statistics about the spread of population around the world under various classifications. The numbers are turned into graphics to give another sense a touch – Look, this is the world we are living in.

More posters can be viewed on his personal website.

2. Be very literal

Creative banana and strawberry juice packaging
Image credit: Toxel

In this range of wildly creative fruit juice packages, Japanese industrial designer Naoto Fukasawa imitates the look and feel of the fruit it contains. The packaging ranges from strawberry and banana to coconut and tofu milk.

The additional tactile dimension makes the contents appear fresher and juicer, as if you are squeezing juice out of the original thing.

Another clever concept by Hiroku Sanders translates Kleenex’s "slice of summer" campaign into fruit shaped tissue boxes:

Kleenex tissue boxes designed as fruit slices
Image credit: The Dieline

3. Use creative typography

The concept of meta-communication can also be applied to creative font styling, whether you eat your way from A to Z...

Letters of the alphabet consisting of food
Image credit: Inspire me now

...or switch to tie-pography!

Ties arranged in font format
Image credit: Ednacional

Typography is often used in print advertising to create a stronger message:

Petrol pump tube arranged to form the words efficiency
Toyota print advert by Saatchi & Saatchi LA

Deutsch advert consisting of rusty type
Brighton print ad by Russian agency Voskhod

Ad concept by Clemenger BBDO, Sydney, Australia

4. Make objects behave differently to the norm

Brock Davis, a talented American artist / illustrator, took the concept of fracture and applied it to ordinarily non-shattering objects. What results is a series of mind-boggling imagery that re-invent physics as we know it.

Shattered banana art
Shattered green cap art
Shattered tissue box art
Image source: Brock Davis

5. Communicate succinctly

Sometimes less is more.

Craig Damrauer is the master of economical communication. With his daily math equations he provides eye-catching social commentary with an elegant minimalism (more here).

$Modern art equals I could do that plus yeah, but you didn\'t$
$Escalator equals stairs minus thigh muscles$
Source: New Math

Here are more examples of minimalist communication in action:

$Mc Donald\'s wifi advert consisting of fries$
"Free Wi-Fi at Mc Donald's ad (Source: English blog)

Advert for Weber Hats
Hitler or Chaplin? The difference is in the hat. (Weber Hats ad featured on Penn Olson)

Minimalist Veet Advert
At last, a hairless bar of soap with the help of Veet (featured on Penn Olson)

6. Merge visual concepts

Lastly, you can fuse seemingly unrelated visuals into one. This is precisely how Sidney International communicated the idea of a truly global food festival. They arranged the national cuisine in flag format:

Italian and Brazilian food in flag format

Korean and Japanese food in flag format
Korean and Japanese food (Concept by WHYBIN/TBWA)