My first ad layout.

Was thinking exactly the same. I actually saw the photo before reading most of the post and was thinking that 1.5MP camera is better than my 4.1MP camera

Started to get a bit jealous

Good work ATNO!

The blue text is hard to read. Rest - not bad, nice logo. Needs some white space, so your mind isnt all over the shop.

All the best.

First, congrats on the job. I see a lot of people have committed on your work. I didn't read them all so I hope I am not about to repeat anything. I do agree with Remon, the text is too close together. Also, I don't quite understand the realtion with the water. If it were a hydro-power company it would work for me. The engines, I believe maybe they could have been incorporated into the image a little better. Maybe you should have made it look as though the engines were actually in the water instead of just arbitrarily placed on the page.

Well, the ocean could have been any nature background really, but my boss wants to work a current theme of "environmental" awareness into our advertising. Given the radioactive nature of our service lines, we want to paint a picture that we care about the environment, which is indeed the truth.

The motors are nuclear power plant water cooling motors (as best I understand), hence the association with water. It would have been probably better to have them sorta sitting in the water as you suggested, but I didn't know how to do that, truthfully.

My 2 cents...

1. You need a "call to action" -tell them what you want them to do and why. Do you want them to visit a website to get more info? Call a # for a chance to win something? Etc.

2. The background is too busy and distracts from the text. IMO you need to lighten the bg image (and then increase the saturation).

3. Move the text up a bit (or the pump down a bit) so they don't overlap. It causes a lot of tension in the ad.

4. Move the logo up a little and make it smaller, or put it near the bottom (where the URL should also be) This will make the ad flow better.

If you haven't gone to print with it yet and have the files in PC format I'd be willing to work up an alternative layout (free of course ) - just let me know.

thanks for the feedback and the offer, jlknauff, but I believe we have passed the deadline for that one. Definitely will keep all that in mind though. I start work today on two more full page ads for a couple more publications. This time I'll ask for critique before submitting *smiles.

I agree with dM, wicked job on cutting those out ATNO. When I worked in Marketing for a shower company, I often had to take my own pics and cut them out and try make them look professional, so I know its hard as heck.

I think you have done great on the ad - it can be difficult to decide what to do when there are so many options.

dM has given some good advice, on my ads for myself and clients I avoid putting the logo at the top as well, usually a caption of information to entice the reader to read on further.

The font choice for text is good too, it needs to be plain to be easy to read on that kind of background, and you've acheived that.

Nice work, for a first effort it looks darn good to me!!

Thanks Rose. Actually at this point this evening after reading your post, that gave me the warm / fuzzy feeling I was hoping for all-day.

i hope you be a awesome graphis designer this here is a masterpiece good luck