Media Guide Print Ads

Client: CBS Sports

Project: Design a full page print ad for the university partner media guides

My Role: Graphic Designer

Goals:

Each year CBS creates sports specific print ads to run in multiple university athletic media guides to promote their online brand. The goal is the create an engaging image that will help in this process.

Challenges / Solutions:

On any given year 30-40 universities will participate. With tight deadlines, the most efficient solution was to create an image to be used for all with minimal changes in content needed. The difficulty is creating a design that is engaging yet can be generic enough to fit all universities. In the past, we have used generic items such as sports equipment. In this case, I wanted to push the action of the sport. Using players to me was key. A big challenge I found was using a player without any identity. Each school has their unique uniforms as well as athletes. I had to make sure no recognizable faces, numbers, stripes, etc. were visible in the finished product.  My solution was to come up with a rough paint theme. Through this, I was able to use very little detail. I could use paint splatters to mask or alter anything to indicate specifics. I also liked the paint theme as I was able to show more energy using the looseness of the paint texture. To make it customized for each of the universities I used their main colors in a gradient from top to bottom across the image. I placed the school logo at the top and center for quick brand identity.