How to Create Outdoor Billboards
You really want to look, but you're committed to keeping both hands on the wheel and your eyes on the road. Outside, the body of a sexy, liposuctioned woman, a basket of pets or information about something you're eager to know passes along your line of peripheral vision as you debate the merits of distracted driving. That billboard got your attention, big time---exactly the job a well-designed one is supposed to do. Now, it's your turn to be the billboard designer. What strategies will you employ to attract wandering eyes on that interstate highway?
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Things You'll Need
- Billboard specifications
- Graphic images
- Ad copy
- Computer
- Image manipulation software
- Page layout software
- Commercial printer/plotter
- Billboard structure
- High-density vinyl sheeting
Instructions
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Take a drive. View as many billboard ads as possible to evaluate colors, layout, design, copy and impact. Assess the level of information you've gathered in the seconds it took to drive past the most dynamic billboards and use those as models for your own efforts.
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Research the brand you're advertising and write sales copy based on the story your product or service needs to tell. Edit the copy to come up with seven strong words, considered the optimal amount of copy a billboard should contain. Reserve at least one of the seven word slots for your contact information.
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3
Search for appropriate stock photos or hire a photographer to take digital pictures after explaining the project in detail. Give the photographer a hand-drawn or computer-generated rough of the final billboard design so she leaves enough background room to insert copy blocks into the design. Request high-resolution digital images that are saved in either TIFF or JPEG formats.
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Start up the computer and open a page layout program, such as QuarkXpress or InDesign. Assuming the coverage area of a typical billboard is 25 feet long by 12 feet high, set up your page layout program to launch a landscape document that's 30 inches wide by 14.40 inches high. Save the file.
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Open your image manipulation program, such as Photoshop. Retrieve the picture(s) shot for your billboard. Clean up the image(s) using filters and tools to maximize contrast, color saturation and image details. Size the image so it's slightly larger than the billboard layout document to add room for bleed (the image goes beyond the edges) and installation. Maintain the highest dots-per-inch, or dpi, setting to minimize sharpness once it's enlarged to the finished size.
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Return to your page layout file. Drag a picture box across the document expanse and import the image to match the layout. Position copy boxes and import your logo through another picture box. Tweak the design until you're satisfied with the results. Proof the layout, set the printer/plotter parameters to at least 25 feet by 12 feet (add extra so the art can be wrapped around the billboard), load the vinyl sheeting and output the final art.
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Tips & Warnings
Billboards come in a variety of sizes---some as large as 20 feet by 60 feet---so nail down the size of the board in question before you begin so your calculations are accurate.
