The ad designer thread
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- fues
Any ad designers out here?
How will the banner scene evolve?
Please share your thoughts.
- doesnotexist0
rich media buys
gameification
pulling social content
- fues0
And technology wise?
- fues0
- fyoucher10
That's what I do. My thoughts:
Think the ad infrastructure on sites need to change for HTML-based ads first. Right now most sites are setup to support Flash-based and static ads. Who knows how long that'll take. Maybe a couple more years, if that.
Then you need time to factor in changing IAB LCD specs, cause you ain't getting a 40k banner with "HTML5". Think that's largely going to be determined on global bandwidth averages. A lot of folks have high-speed, yes, but when you're on WiFi, bandwidth is still at a premium to some extent. Sites will probably still be looking to keep things low in file size. Same goes for strictly video-based HTML ads, especially having them served to mobile devices, where bandwidth is at an extreme premium.
Then you have creative consistency on browsers and devices with HTML. Flash works on all browsers on desktops, but not on iOS and most mobile. Whereas HTML works, but then you have compatibility issues, and then extra production time to fix those inconsistencies.
On top of all of that, it just takes a lot longer to create an HTML ad than a Flash ad. That's something that's going to be factored into ad buys with clients. It's still a lot cheaper to produce a Flash ad, and serve it. Clients are always looking to save loot. So, then we need to wait for a good IDE for creating HTML ads, so designers can begin producing them -- not just developers. You have Adobe, MediaMind, and Google all with their own IDE, but they mainly only work on their systems.
- "Flash must die"
- Steve Jobsutopian - IAB specs are complete and utter BULLSHIT i hate that crap to no enddoesnotexist
- Yeah, but we need standards otherwise it would be hell created all kinds of variations for diff sitesfyoucher1
- "Flash must die"
- fues0
True, and given the fact that AS2 and not AS3 is still mostly a standard requirement, I think it will take a lot longer before HTML ads will be standard.
The ads I make in HTML (if any) are mostly just semi-static interstitials for tablet. The new canvas mode in flash offers a lot potential, so maybe that's where we're heading when it comes to classic format ads.
- bored2death0
Everything fyoucher1 said.
I deliver a single .swf and a backup .jpg. Boom... done.
Doing a html5 banner involves so many files it's ridiculous... and to me, the more pieces there are, the greater the chance something is going to get fucked up.
There's going to have to be some balance. People are so about mobile right now that it's getting ridiculous. Some experiences aren't meant for mobile and never will be.
I dunno, man... I do it for a living and I have no clue where things are heading.
- Frosty_spl0
Back to animated Gif ads.
- fyoucher10
Also need to think about Smart TV's and how ads will integrate into those. Thinking there's probably going to be a point, where the "web" isn't just mobile and desktop, but that TV's will be able to access the current web just like a desktop -- no different. At least that makes the most sense to me. Mobile and desktop are already being able to get a ton of video on them. Cable networks have been putting TV content on mobile/desktops, think Netflix, ABC/NBC, HBO Go, Showtime, etc. Obviously, that's a few years down the road (or maybe even a decade away, since folks will likely need to get rid of their current TV to update to a new 'connected-TV'). Maybe that's something Apple is already working on, maybe the so-called iTV.
Who knows, maybe Adobe will make Flash open-source at some point and that'll be the new 'canvas'.
- utopian0
@fyouchart, spot on observations!
- monospaced0
I can't believe you meant fucking web banners pixel monkey when you said ad designer. That's offensive to those who work in advertising.
That being said, I don't think much will change with banner ads. Some intern will make one based on the campaign that was designed by ad designers, and it will be seen by many and clicked-on by almost nobody, and everyone involved will be happy with that shit.
- good ol' monospaced, QBN wouldn't be QBN without youfues
- Advertising: all the same shit, different tech's or specs or platform to work on.fyoucher1
- I disagree 100%. One part is coming up with a campaign, the other part is production.monospaced
- Was talking bout advertising in general. Tryin to sell something to someonefyoucher1
- I still disagree. One is dealing with tech/platform execution. The other is coming up with concept/campaign etcmonospaced
- fues is talking about web banners... that's like intern work, not ad designer workmonospaced
- well... I guess it can be good if the ad designer has a good ideamonospaced
- Only "website" designers think it's intern work.fyoucher1
- And you're still misunderstanding what I'm saying, I understand connecting is a diff step from production.fyoucher1
- *concepting. Advertising in general.fyoucher1
- deathboy0
the medium sucks for any good creative. especially with large media buys with all types of sizes and deadlines.... that said i think the real focus will be reporting and proof of ROI or any value really. And clients will want more of them and will want to spend less on them and they will want them done faster. Squarespace might take over and create a banner maker and cut out agencies all together and just let the failed design students on client marketing side take over.
- doesnotexist0
IAB standards are a joke. i hate their standardized bullshit ads. the fun ones are animated gifs and super simple. or they do something crazy like turn the front page of the times into asteroids.
- animatedgif0
Complete waste of fucking time, banner blindness and terrible clickthrough for the cost make it a joke.
Bet you'd even have a better clickthrough from a "one weird trick" GIF than a proper fancy flash banner campaign with takeovers/overlays/expandables etc
- mekk0
I also do/did banner ads and I'm heavily pissed by the size limitations. On some sites I'm allowed to give my .swf 50k but only 20k for the fallback .gif and then 100k for the .jpg. Fuck you, restrictions writer. Fuck you really hard. Once I called them and asked why they allow with .swf only 50k and they really said "because mobile".
This banner business is useless, it's people trying to think print in a digital world. I have never seen a banner campaign that people actually clicked. The only thing that works is the cookie-based product info of Items you watched as a reminder.
- mekk0
^ to that mobile thing: besides flash not working on mobile, most 3G and 4G connections are much faster than standard cable internet. Boom.
- antimotion0
In the 3 years I've been with the company I work for, we've tried static, animated gifs, flash, and whatever whacky tech you can think of...
- static always gets best clicks. Animated gifs second - if simple, not long.
- animatedgif0
I like how the animated gif limitation is usually a fraction of the banner yet animated gif is a terrible compression format so the same content would always be bigger. Sometimes a static 3 frame GIF slideshow will be bigger than an entire banner if there is photographic content.
But the people in charge of all this shit don't realise that because they're all fucking morons.
So glad I haven't done any of this for a few years now
- mekk0
pro swf tip: in heavy banners, our banners only contained actionscript and loaded all graphics etc from our server. mbwahaha. For one client, we had one so good that it built it's own layout, not caring about the width and height it was given. responsive if you want to call it like that. Still no clicks.