Hoardings are just large posters. They are generally installed outside in the open–on the highway and on top of buildings. However, you can also see hoardings inside the airports and other large facilities. Hoardings are more effective in delivering the message and getting the attention of the customer as they are not surrounded by text and editorials like newspaper advertisements.

Designing a hoarding is a little different from designing a brochure or an advertisement. There are various reasons for this. First, a hoarding is read from far as compared to a brochure or an advertisement which is just a few inches away from your eyes. Second, you get more time to read a brochure or an advertisement but you may get a few seconds to read a hoarding. When you see a hoarding while driving, you may have the time to just glance at the hoarding. Third, hoardings are only support/reminder advertising mediums. That is, you use this media to remind your target audience that you exist. While driving you don't expect the customer to stop on the road or the highway to read what's written on a hoarding. These three factors have to be taken into account while designing a hoarding.

The following has to be considered while designing hoardings:

Less said the better

Since you don't expect people to stop and read a hoarding, you need to say as little as possible in a hoarding so that the audience can read the message quickly. The less said the better it is as far as a hoarding is concerned. The hoarding design should just contain your basic promise expressed in as few words as possible. Some suggest between six and ten words. This is primarily because a hoarding is expected to serve as a reminder medium only.

Keep your message simple

Your message or the advertising idea for a hoarding should be as simple as possible. Actually, if you want to test how good your advertising idea is, try and see if it works on a hoarding. If the idea can be used effectively on a hoarding, you can sleep in peace, assured that you have a good idea for your advertising campaign. In fact, I recently had an experience which proves this. We were supposed to design a small 10CC classified display advertisement for a client and whatever designs we made did not appeal to us. We decided to develop the concept on a poster as my art director felt he would have more space to play with and then we would convert the same into a smaller size. It turned out that the idea worked. We were able to develop some really interesting hoarding designs which we converted to 10CC advertisements as well as small table top posters. So if you are not getting good creatives from your advertising agency, ask them to make a hoarding. I am sure some new ideas will flow through.

Also, hoardings can help in another way. You can test your headline. If you can make a good hoarding with your headline and if the message is clear from it, you can be reasonably sure that the headline is a good one. As mentioned before, the challenge in a hoarding is that you have to convey your message in as few words as possible. As such, if you can create an effective hoarding with your headline, you have passed a critical test for an effective and creative headline.

Fonts have to be bigger

Brochures and press advertisements are read from near. So setting them in smaller fonts is fine. But hoardings have to draw your attention from far. Also, unlike a brochure which can be carried along and read later, the same can't be done with a poster or a hoarding. As such, the following factors have to be considered while selecting the font for a hoarding design:

1. Font visibility: As mentioned earlier, upper and lowercase type is easier to read than all caps. As such, it is recommended that in posters text should be formatted in upper and lowercase. Also, word spacing needs to be checked to improve legibility.

2. Colour visibility: Colour combinations with high contrast should be used for better readability. This is very important. Recently, Yahoo has started an advertising campaign in India. In New Delhi, I saw the hoarding and was amazed to see a glaring mistake made by the designer. On a yellow background, the text was written in white. The text was not readable in spite of the fact that the text size was large. White on yellow color will never stand out. In a hoarding design, you have to make sure that all the design elements including the text is clearly readable and visible from far.

3. Distance comprehension: To make the fonts readable and legible from a distance, use large size fonts. Use of larger fonts is absolutely necessary for hoardings so that they are readable from far. Bigger the font, better it is. If the words have to be bigger, than obviously there has to be a restriction on the number of words that a poster or a hoarding can accommodate.

Use professional help

The synergy of your words and illustrations is perhaps more important on a hoarding than for any other piece of advertising and promotional material. If you are an inexperienced advertiser then you will have tough time handling this media. Perhaps this is one area where professional help is a must because even a small mistake in a hoarding gets magnified like the one I noticed in the Yahoo hoarding.

Developing a hoarding design poses another challenge for both the advertising agency as well as the client. Usually, clients want to say more. If customers see a lot of white space, they will invariably ask you to add more information. Advertising agency has to convince the client to restrict the amount of information that should be given in a hoarding. On the other hand, clients need to control their urge to fill up white space with something or the other.

Savvy marketers are waking up to the advantages of street presence. While street presence with hoardings adds to the brand image, bad hoarding designs can adversely affect the brand image as in the case of Yahoo.