The artistry of advertising art


When most people look at a billboard, or any type of ad, they see the product or service being promoted. And that's how it should be, because companies pay a LOT of money to advertise, and if the average person saw it the same way that I do, it would be a waste of money. I'm a graphic designer, and I'll see if I can explain what I see.

It wasn't until I started teaching graphic design that I put it into words, and I call it "structure versus content". It might sound complicated, but it isn't, and it applies to a lot of things. The structure is the art of the ad, and the content is the stuff being sold.

These guys are painting a billboard in the 1890s. The company, by the way, was Siebe and Green, who worked in San Francisco, California, and they did anything that was needed for outdoor advertising, including putting up posters, and of course painting murals like this.


If you were ask me what I see in this photo, I would say that I see men painting a mural. There's not enough content yet for it to communicate anything else, but when they finish it will be a pretty girl advertising soap or something. I will see both structure and content.

Structure and content are all around us, and once you start to see it, you see it everywhere. It's the artistry of someone who is pouring concrete with care, it's the artistry of someone who is singing a song (I'm a baritone, by the way, but I stink at singing!). And that leads me to the creative spirit, which is the term that I prefer over "artistry": you don't even have to be any good at something to be artistic, it's a point of view, not necessarily anything of financial value. Art can be your life without being your livelihood.


Siebe and Green were general advertisers, bill posters, and artists. Speaking for myself, when I set out to find out how I could use my artistic skills to earn money, I discovered that companies wanted advertising design, and would pay money for it, so I did that. I originally called my company (well, it was just me!) "Brad Hall Advertising Art", which I shortened to BradHallArt when the internet came around. When I started out I would do anything related to advertising art, I painted store windows, I did hand lettering, I even painted a Stock Car. Eventually I found it more lucrative to just be at a drawing board, and then on a computer.

There have been many people around me who have never been able to see my art, and I understand. One of my best students at the Art Institute said it best: "Graphic design fades away and only the message is seen". And it really is true. If you're looking at billboards and wondering why they used that particular font, or those colors, you're just plain weird, and you're a person who sees structure and not just content, like a graphic designer.

Images from the Duke University Library Digital Collections.
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