After the article about what mistakes to avoid in advertising design and how to do it (GH, February 2016) in the March issue of “Shopping Malls” (GH, March 2016), Ania and I focus on one specific area. Why do we want to discuss advertising?

This is what ancient philosophers saw and knew: nature does not allow a vacuum to persist and will fill it one way or another.
Nature does. But what about culture?
The tendency to fill the entire composition surface has been present in various eras and cultures. This is how Celts, Native Americans, and Arabs designed and decorated. European baroque is decorative, rich, and abundant. Horror vacui – the fear of emptiness – appears in very contemporary advertising and is one
of the reasons why advertising doesn't work and why we don't particularly like it.
Why does this happen?

Because overloading the form with content, ornamentation, and decorativeness distracts the viewer
and takes away the comfort of reading the message. Reading not only literally, in terms of content and written slogans. Reading – meaning the reception of the overall image.
When chaos dominates a design, we tend to abandon it subconsciously, stop engaging with it, and shift our attention to things that bring pleasure, don't irritate, that we intuitively understand and feel good interacting with.
In outdoor advertising, as with first impressions: seconds count.
Scientists claim it takes between 3 and 7 seconds to make a first impression.
As we know, you can only make a first impression once, so these seconds can influence many things. It's worth using them well, worth not wasting them. Here are a few tips on how to do this.

1. Give yourself space.
Using every free spot in an advertising design is not a good idea.
One of the paths leading to advertising pitfalls is the temptation to include too much information – and a large amount of information takes up a lot of space and needs a lot of time to receive, process, and remember. This won't work. What will work is when you choose one main message, one primary communication.

2. Choose a goal.
If you don't know where you're going, how will you know when you've arrived? So choose a goal.
One goal.
If you decide on image-building creative – avoid the temptation to inform about special offers
and sales. If you want to announce a sale season – simply get to the point.
Combining different goals in one design is quite common but definitely not recommended.
Not only is it easier to present one message - it's also easier to remember. And after all, advertising is partly about making information memorable.

3. Ensure functionality.
In advertising, effectiveness, efficiency, and achieving goals count. That's why the best ads are often simple and functional. They don't have non-standard creative elements, they don't contain the latest technologies. Instead, they execute the message.
Simply.

4. Be careful with symbols.
Symbols are important. So important that you need to think twice about whether using a symbol in advertising
is a good idea. Because it might be excellent, or it might be very misguided. The design will work, but it may trigger associations and refer to values that cause completely different effects, such as aversion to the brand.

5. Careful with desire!
The task of advertising is to evoke emotions. If advertising relies on unethical images or slogans, on aggression, sex, if it offends, provokes, balances on the edge of good manners, interferes with religious feelings – yes, it will arouse emotions. But are they really the ones you want?

6. Be consistent.
Patience and consistency in building messages, repetition of certain elements, referencing the brand's personality – this is a long-distance tactic.
If you care about building a lasting image and establishing yourself in people's consciousness, this is the right tactic.