Creative Design

Today’s billboards share a legacy of creative talent and innovation with their predecessors. While vinyl wraps dominate modern displays, advancements in materials and technology have expanded the potential for spectacular advertisements. As it does today, past billboard advertising relied heavily on the skills of creative teams and installation crews. However, the processes were analog, not digital. The physical demand of creating billboard displays without giant printers, computer-assisted graphic design, or lightweight panels meant that production could take many more weeks than it does now. In the late 1960s or so, Hills Brothers Coffee embarked on an ad campaign featuring dinosaurs, cavemen, and the tagline “GOOD strong coffee.” What follows is a step-by-step photographic journey of one of the campaign’s billboard advertisements, from sketch to installation.

Typography is one of the most difficult elements of a billboard design to get right. But it’s so crucial to the design because that is what ultimately communicates the client’s message. A billboard’s typography needs to be readable, but that is just getting over the bar for what billboard artwork should be. The best billboard artwork uses typography in unexpected ways and sometimes even breaks the industry mold.

Billboard artwork can take a lot of time effort, and expertise to create, but the end result is always so satisfying. Now that the third quarter of 2024 is over, let’s look back at the top 10 best displays!

To follow the brand guidelines or not to follow, that is the question. Brand guidelines can give graphic designers a solid starting point and sometimes even inspiration. Other times they are not well thought out, can be unnecessarily limiting, and can hamstring an innovative design.

In an era when hand-painted billboard advertisements reigned supreme, billboard artists laid out their work using a pattern transfer technique called “pouncing.”  Pounce patterns were well-known to Renaissance artists like Michelangelo. Sign painters, muralists, fine artists, embroiderers, and quilters still use this method in their work today.

Before the age of AI design and the room-sized large-format printers that produce printed vinyl wraps used in outdoor advertising today, specialized artists hand-painted billboard ads one at a time. This art form required high skill and creativity, as artists had to paint large advertisements directly onto transportable panels, billboard structures, or walls. Meadow Outdoor Advertising hand-painted many of its designs into the early twenty-first century.

Billboards need high contrast to make an impact. The images need to contrast, and the copy needs to contrast with its background. But also, the entire billboard needs to contrast with its surroundings. Billboards have physical locations that are each unique, and to make the best impression, the billboard will need to contrast with its environment. So how as billboard artists do we ensure that happens?

Meadow produces a lot of great billboard artwork every quarter and our clients send us lots of great stuff too. We wanted to give a special shoutout to the outstanding pieces that deserve a little extra attention!

Anyone can make billboard artwork, but not everyone can make good billboard artwork. The principles of billboard design are simple but there are many of them. Here are 4 tips that will help your billboard artwork look less like an amateur’s work and more like a professional’s.

The realm of digital art is experiencing a seismic shift as Artificial Intelligence (AI) weaves its way into the creative process. This technological revolution is reshaping the way all digital art is made, including billboard artwork.

The first quarter of 2024 is over and here are the top 10 best creative designs Meadow has posted in the last three months!

So, you think you have a good billboard design. You think it's readable, with intentional hierarchy, and high contrast. But it’s hard to tell from your computer screen whether it will be effective when printed onto a vinyl and on hung on a billboard. Here are some ways you can test the art for yourself and know if it will do the job.

We’ve all seen billboards. Whether it’s driving down the highway or cruising on a surface street. Some of the art sticks in your head, but some doesn’t. What makes billboard art successful? There are four principal ways to make your billboard design unforgettable!

Contrast is one of the most crucial design elements on a billboard. If colors are muted, lack contrast, or conflict with each other, an advertiser’s message will be difficult to read.

Hierarchy is subtle, not as evident as color contrast or other design elements, but it can take a good billboard design and make it great.

Billboard designs are fundamentally different from any other type of advertising medium, they need to be clear, concise, and readable. Here is our list of 4 pitfalls to avoid!

Meadow is committed to good billboard artwork. We provide full-service design to create or revise artwork with our clients. Billboard art is unique from a design perspective, and most people are unfamiliar with it. It can be helpful for clients to understand why we make the creative decisions that we do.