Meadow Blog

In today’s digital age, some organizations are finding success with a more traditional approach: billboards. Recent campaigns across various sectors have shown how this classic medium can effectively attract talent and boost recruitment efforts.

Hurricane Helene and Milton swept through the southeastern United States on September 26th and October 9th respectively, but the cleanup and rebuilding have just begun. It’s a race against time as the weather gets colder and the days get shorter. Winter is almost here and the need for shelter is immediate.

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.

Nestled in the lush forests near Salem, Oregon, the Enchanted Forest Theme Park is a whimsical destination that has delighted visitors since 1971. Designed by Roger Tofte and voted Newsweek's Best Family-Owned Amusement Park in 2024, this roadside venue offers a unique blend of fairy tale charm, thrilling rides, and engaging attractions that make it a must-visit for families and adventure seekers alike.

Finding your target customer is crucial in every area of marketing. For example, when your billboard advertisement does not reach your target market it will not be successful. Roy H. Williams in his book Wizard of Ads’, on page 25 questions this piece of industry wisdom.

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.