How to use art in direct response

By Craig Huey

Most artists can’t do direct response art. Many direct response campaigns have been crippled or destroyed because the artist has violated critical rules that have been proven successful over time.

Many will admire or compliment the great-looking design of your ad or mail piece. But it's essential to realize that it is the copy that does the selling, not the beautiful design. Attractive design never sold anything, unless accompanied by good copy.

Copy is “King.” And the designer’s job is to make the King presentable. The designer can’t let the King go anywhere without people noticing him, thinking well of him and wanting to get to know him.

With few exceptions, copy must always be given visual preeminence. When other visual or graphic elements dominate, regardless of how beautiful they are, they serve only as a distraction.

With that said, here are a few guidelines for the proper design of powerful direct response advertising.

Typestyle

Always use serif type for body copy (never use italic type for chunks of body copy).

Times Roman is the standard typeface for easy reading. It is the most basic, simple, readable typeface that exists.

However, when used in large point sizes, Times is boring and uninviting. So, you'll usually want to select a different typestyle for headlines and subheads.

Other typestyles that have most of the positive features of Times Roman, including large x-height, but with a more inviting appearance when used at headline sizes, include Garamond, Palatino, Clearface and Galliard.

The only time you should consider using sans serif type is when creating headlines and subheads. Examples of sans serif headline typestyles are Helvetica Black, Futura Extra-bold or Franklin Gothic Heavy.

Headline and subhead rules

Headlines and subheads can be set in either serif or sans serif. Sans serif often appears more masculine and is appropriate for many promotions targeting a primarily male audience.

Do not put your headline in ALL CAPS. All caps are too hard to read. Use initial caps only for quicker reading.

From the headline, we move into…

Type size for body copy

Again, for optimum readability, you want to use 10- or 11-point type size.

12-point is larger than necessary, but can be used for emphasis or in the rare cases that extra space is available.

9-point is the minimum. It is usable, and sometimes necessary.

Often, you'll be able to begin a section in 10- or 11-point, then reduce the rest of your copy to 9-point.

8-point type is too small for paragraphed body copy, though it has been used, with some success, on very wordy space ads. It can be good for captions, addresses and other nonbody copy uses.

Once you’ve chosen a typestyle and type size, you can begin thinking about…

Body copy column format

When setting up your body copy, you need to be aware of the 5 rules for best results:

1. Leading. Leading is the space between words and lines. You should set solid or 1-point leading in order to fit more type. Ascenders and descenders will not touch when using one of the optimum typefaces mentioned above. 1-point leading helps readability when there is room, and is even more necessary with wider columns.
2. Ragged right. Avoid the temptation to use right-margin justification. It looks impersonal. The same goes for centered blocks of copy.
3. Indent all paragraphs. Also, add leading between paragraphs equal to about one-third of the point size of the type being used.
4. Optimum column width: 35-55 characters. On a 45-pica page width 11-point falls best on two columns, 10-point on 2 or 3 columns and 9-point on 3 columns.
5. Avoid long paragraphs. At the most, use 5 or 6 lines per paragraph. But, be sure to include 3- and 4-line paragraphs as well. Short paragraphs make the copy more inviting. Long paragraphs turn off the reader.

In addition to these 5 rules, you also should be aware of…

Things to avoid in body copy format

• Type printed in anything other than black ink, especially reverse type (white type on a black background)
• Type printed over a dark benday screen or on dark paper
• Large sections in italic (use italic for emphasis only—bold italic often works better for this)
• All caps (except to emphasize a few words at a time)
• Bold type (except to emphasize a few words at a time)

Use of color

There is one main rule for the use of color: Use warm colors; avoid cold colors.

You probably don’t need to use a four-color process, unless color photography is necessary to sell a product that must be shown in color. Using four colors usually doesn’t increase response enough to offset the extra expense. There are exceptions, such as food products, jewelry and fashion. Two or three colors is usually optimum. One of these will always be black for body copy.

Use of photography

When using photographs, use black and white or duotone. (Four color is usually used only when necessary to show the product in color, or on extremely large printing runs).

Pictures of people catch more attention than almost any other subject. Try to show a product with a person, or even a hand, in the shot holding the product.

Outlined photos (those with backgrounds knocked out) often capture more attention than a traditional rectangle frame.

Use photos to draw attention to the copy, not from the copy. Every photo should have a caption. The photo and the caption should stimulate interest in the copy adjacent to them.

Once you’ve designed your ad, you need to begin thinking about your…

Order form or response device

Just remember these 3 rules:

1. Always leave plenty of room for people to fill in their address, phone number and, especially, their credit card number.
2. Use pictures or symbols of telephones, fax machines and credit cards.
3. Use a certificate border around your coupon when copy refers to the order form as a “certificate.”

Finally, here are some other tips on…

Overall page appearance—making eye flow easy

Busy isn’t necessarily bad. Give your reader a lot to feast his or her eyes on. There is usually a lot of copy and very little room. Be willing to sacrifice white space in order to have room for readable body copy and attention-getting headlines.

1. Break up a page visually with the use of large numbers (2 to 4 lines high, with copy wrapped around).
2. Use large asterisks, one or two lines high, in place of bullets.
3. When using bullets, use big cap-high bullets, and print them in color.
4. Box some copy in order to emphasize it. Or, indent both sides.
5. Print subheads in color.
6. Always try to show a photo or illustration of a premium being promoted. Design premium book covers, with very large type, that will be readable when the book is shown three-quarters of an inch high.
7. Use an official-looking certificate border around a guarantee, when space allows.
8. Direct the reader’s eye towards your target with devices that catch attention, such as arrows, solid areas of heavy color, bright colors, irregular shapes, anything at an angle, a sunburst or pictures—especially of people, large phone numbers—with telephone symbols, clip art symbols of credit cards, etc.

When to follow these rules

An old design axiom is that “form follows function.” The function of art, in direct marketing, is always to generate a response. So, each design decision, including a decision to break a rule, must have increased response as its purpose. Try to defend every design decision based on the criteria.