elbowruminations | Graphic Design Trends, Tips and Reviews Graphic Design Trends, Tips and Reviews

As tax season descends upon us like a late transit bus, commuters everywhere are being issued a friendly reminder from the Royal Bank of Canada that it might be a good time to think about RRSPs. While ordinarily a reminder like this during tax time might cause a little undue stress, RBC manages to use creativity, colour and simplicity to keep the message stress-free and well-received. If you haven’t already spotted these ads on billboard and bus shelters around Calgary and other Canadian cities, three snapshots are conveniently included below.

The first item the viewer encounters is the creative (nay, ingenious!) twist of typography usage: words like “family,” “health” and “travel” are spelled out with numbers and symbols, employed backwards, upside-down and sideways. Each word is presented upon a blank field of warm colour, and the fine print is tucked away tidily in the white-and-blue swoops that are part of RBC’s consistent branding efforts.

Each ad is accompanied by a concise and simple message summing it all up: “Talk to an advisor about making your RRSP contribution this year,” it might read. Or perhaps: “Our advisors look for what’s important to you, so they can help you create a plan that fits. Speak to an advisor today.” By coupling a creative visual with a straightforward message, the ad has a very high chance of sticking in the viewer’s mind, and even being followed up on.

Each element in this ad speaks “non-intimidating.” It’s refreshing to see a non-traditional colour pallete employed: dimmer shades of summertime colours end up feeling warm, but not obnoxious. With the creative display of numerals and symbols, the ad can almost serve as a recruiting ad for RBC, suggesting that this bank values people who like to play with numbers.

All in all, the simple message, accessible design and creative presentation manages to get viewers into a good mood about money again. Suddenly, instead of numbers spelling out your doom, they’re spelling out words you care about. The ads serve as a reminder that whatever plans you’re making with your finances, it’s important to be working towards your values and dreams, not just wealth accumulation.

If you have grandparents, you have been to Swiss Chalet. If you haven’t, your grandparents lives could possibly be devoid of all meaning. For those with grandparents living desolate, lonely lives subconsciously longing for the quarter chicken dinner that will complete their existence, Swiss Chalet is a restaurant that commonly looks like a Chalet and may or may not have originated in Switzerland. It is stereotypically frequented by the elderly but will also hospitably accommodate younger people as well, without bias.

Perhaps something they are not well known for is graphic design. Recently, however this all changed as a hungry representative of Elbowruminations had the opportunity to visit Swiss Chalet accompanied by the token grandmother who stubbornly refuses to eat anything not made of chicken. Upon being seated it was immediately apparent that the menus where not only new but they were very well designed! Perhaps the most creative approach to restaurant menus seen in quite some time.

This menu was more like a food based fairy tale detailing the experience you were about to have rather than a linear inventory of available items. The front and back of the menu was printed with a brickwork similar to what you might find on a classic rotisserie oven. It opened out-wards, like double doors, revealing removable current specials on inside panel – a practical solution that serves to highlight what customers should see first. The size of the menu was also unusual, being a square shape rather than a traditional tall rectangle.

The interior pages of the menu were comprised of classic, simple text treatment and a clean, open layout. A straight, square, two column layout made reading about eating easy. The lack of clutter and consistent style sheet – red titles and black descriptions on a white background – was quick to navigate.

The photography chosen for this menu was bright, powerful, and plentiful. Every odd page contained a full page photo that was not only relevant to the food listed next to it, but it was also complementary in colour. The careful planning of each detailed shot exposed the food’s flavour to its fullest visual potential and told a tale of texture and taste in each crisp pixel.

From the non-traditional format of this menu, to the great photography, and the elegant layout, Swiss Chalet has created a perfect sales pitch that could intrigue even the most fickle eater enough to find himself with a fork in his fist. We give it five stars. The food was pretty good too.

Neat is not a word you hear frequently as a term of endearment these days. Perhaps “neat” is not even something your parents would choose to use in an effort to describe something favourable in nature. In fact, according to the good folks at Merriam-Webster, the word “neat” dates back to the year 1649. Why is it being used as a centerpiece of an advertising campaign in 2008? That’s a good question.

It seems there are a lot of questions you could ask about this advertisement designed for the Calgary Public Library. For example, why choose black and blue as the palette for the ad? This colour combination carries negative connotations, primarily the bruised and battered feeling of placing a distant second in a two person punching contest. It’s not bright enough to attract the attention of a busy motorist rushing home to dinner, and it certainly does not give the impression that your local library is a vibrant centre of modern culture.

Furthermore, there are a variety of questions that also need to be asked about the design execution in this advertisement. The first inquiry being why so many fonts were used. Typically, as a graphic designer, you should attempt to keep your font choices to a minimum. Perhaps two fonts should suffice in most situations – a serif and a sans serif. In this case, at least four fonts are used in addition to bold, italics, and a hand written signature at the bottom. That’s too many.

The construction of the ad is also problematic. There is no flow in the layout. Your eyes are required to sweep the entire ad to gather information you’ll need to comprehend the message, and by that time it may be too late, especially in a car. A good graphic designer will engineer information in a way that gives your eyes a chance to see what needs to be seen one element at a time in order of importance. With the Calgary Public Library logo balanced precariously near the centre and everything else thrown in wherever it fits, efficient visual navigation is difficult.

From the archaic and non-relevant terminology, to the poor layout, and the dull colour scheme, this advertisement is a few letters short of a bad first novel and it’s unfortunate. Our library system deserves a better image. It’s a great resource that the majority of people ignore for the preconceived notion that it’s a bland, beaten down institution frequented by people who think books are “neat”. Now where would they get that idea from?