Fun and Effective Design for Ad Space

Ads are a strange thing, for the client it’s about revenue, for the advertiser it’s about exposure, for the designer it’s about throwing it in a corner somewhere so it doesn’t clash with your design.  Often the best solution for ad placement is just good planning.  Find out if the client wants ads and how important they are in the business model.  From there it should be no problem to plan a grid based on standard ad sizes so that throwing an ad in doesn’t break your design or detract too much from the sites content.

Make the ads branded to you
Sometimes just a little design can make an ad look comfortable in your site. Vimeo, AdultSwim, and Carsonified do just enough to make those ads fit in.

Ads as a Resource or Features

Freelanceswitch organizes it's ads to the right with a clean break from the content. This makes it easy to ignore, but easy to find if looking for resources.

Apple groups it's relevant ads in a tidy little box.

Ads can be Easy to See and Easy to Ignore

The Eagles website does a good job of making a nice clean space for it's top ad. The large logo and slideshow below quickly pull the users eye to the meat of the site.

Relevant Ads can be Fun!

Yahoo's auto store uses two of the same ad in different sizes to brand the page to that specific model.

Gamespot tailors it's design around the ad. Their ads are effective because they're well placed, relevant and FUN.

Keep in mind most users have trained themselves to completely ignore ads so the best thing you can do is make sure the user know it’s available to them if they’re interested. Keep it organized, relevant and fun.