Design Elevation: Creating Digital Ads That Inspire

There’s no substitute for artistic vision when it comes to advertising design. That’s why all of our ads are crafted by our innovative design team. No robots here! Frequence delivers fast, effective digital ads that not only convert, but are also visually striking.

Jessie Worden talks about Frequence’s talented team, best practices for digital ad design, and what she looks for when hiring a new designer.

You recently took on the role of Design Elevation Manager. What are your goals for the Creative Team?

At Frequence, we’re passionate about strong design, and we channel that passion into our products. We’ve established design quality standards that reflect both our core values and each client’s brand and message.

As a Design Elevation Manager, my goal is to elevate the team and our products. We don’t just want to meet our clients’ needs, we want to exceed their expectations. There’s so much that we put into making sure this happens: our recruiting efforts, onboarding program, internal design demos, and more. A lot goes on behind the scenes, like high-level design review before sending the creative to our media partners.

We want to deliver designs that inspire the primary target audience to take action. To accomplish this, we use creative design elements that add depth, interest, attention, strong visual messaging, and a clear structure that reflects the client's brand.

What steps are most important to the creative design process?

Designing in different mediums takes a special strategy – consistency is key. Quality assurance (QA) is important to the creative design process because we want our products to be consistently excellent.

The QA process ensures that the designer followed the creative brief and adhered to all guidelines. This way we confirm that the ad is free of spelling or grammatical errors, that the messaging is true to what the client requested (or custom-made by our copywriters), and ultimately that it’s a polished product.

Some products require a higher-level review or, what we call a “white glove” approach. With the white glove QA process, we follow a stricter set of standards that guides branding, attention to detail, engagement, messaging, and design. This is where design elevation comes in. From brainstorming to final review, we ensure our creative team is producing high-quality designs.

How do we make sure the client’s brand is reflected in our designs?

Understanding local advertisers’ needs is paramount. We want the target audience to understand the message, identify with the brand, and engage with the ad. To that end, we consider their industry. This helps us determine imagery, shapes, typefaces, colors, textures, and tone so we can strengthen each client’s message and effectively reach their audience.

There’s not much time to grab a viewer’s attention; display ads only animate for 15 seconds. We prioritize strong imagery and visual hierarchy in our designs so they have concise messaging and high interest. The visual message comes first. The written message is secondary and must be reflected throughout the entire design.

Visual hierarchy is essentially two things: one is the composition, and the other is the written message. The composition is what draws people in – it's the way the design elements are structured in a grid, with intentional scaling variances and color choices. Hierarchy with the written message is crucial in highlighting the most important pieces of the written content. This gives the audience a quick synopsis and visually reels in their interest.

What are the most important qualifications and skills for anyone applying to work at Frequence on the Creative Team?

What makes Frequence unique in the creative design space is our people. We have a diverse team with different skill sets and talents.

Our team is always searching for new ideas, creatively speaking. Not just for new products, or ways to enhance our current products, but across the team culture too. And that's what really defines our team. We look for people who are passionate about design, have fun both inside and outside of the workplace, love to share their creative hobbies, and have a desire to grow.

We want motivated team players who carry a sketchbook around, are excited to try new things, have strong opinions about their favorite content, and are versatile with designing across various industries. Communication, design passion, and personality are key!

What are some activities that you enjoy doing outside of work?

I love to go for scenic drives in my Miata with the top down, visit the beach, play volleyball, dodgeball, and go hiking. Getting outside helps to get the creative juices flowing. It’s all about the journey and taking the time to stop and appreciate the beauty of the nature around you. This inspires my designs and lets me exercise my photography skills to capture cool elements and textures in nature.

A recent hobby of mine is cooking and experimenting in the kitchen. I’ve had a lot of fun whipping up healthy, delectable, and (of course) colorful snacks like Greek yogurt pops. I'm not one that likes to follow the cookbook recipe though. I like to throw my own ideas together and see the smile on my friends’ faces when they taste my creations. Creativity is all about having fun!

Give your marketing strategy a fresh look. See how Frequence's innovative design solutions can help your media agency grow. Book a demo to learn more!

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