This article has been contributed by Jonny Rowntree.

Ever since the creation of advertising, some of the most creative minds have strived to create designs that would appeal to the collective. Good design is judged on universality, which is a requirement in any form of advertising, since the end goal is to convey your message to as many people as possible.

Here are 10 examples of renowned print advertisements that showcase the creative minds behind the brands. You can view 192 more creative adshere.

Fanta’s “Tastable” Print Advertisement

The new Fanta campaign boasts the title as the first tastable print advertisement. This means that you tear a piece of their advertisement and place it in your mouth. Of course, you can do that with any advertisement but this once tastes like oranges, similar to their signature soft drink. The advertisement, created by OgilvyOne in Dubai, reads, “Like a burst of sunshine through a cool wisp of wind, it’s sweet and tangy, surprising and juicy. It tickles like a delicious secret that you cannot bear to share”. You can see how it all works in the following video:

Volkswagen “Car Key”

To convey the message across to their potential customers that they could be getting 620 miles out a single tank of fuel with their Amarok range, ad agency Below, developed a series of print advertisements to invite people to turn on to adventure. The creative concept, features three images with the groves of the car keys shaped to appear like a city, safari and mountain landscape.

McDonalds “Whole Potato”

Leading fast food restaurant, McDonalds, teamed up with Shanghai’s TBWA to create another new and innovative advertisement to convey their latest offering to their customers. This time, the advertisement collection features a box of fries, carved directly out of the very ingredient from which they are made.

Wacom “Creativity has no boundaries”

Wacom designed a creative print advertisement to showcase and promote their latest tablet design, Bamboo, under the tagline “Creativity has no boundaries”. Wacom’s art director and illustrator, Maria Molina, created a series of three illustrations each featuring various designer tools with a twist; in this instance it features a pair of scissors and a magnifying glass. With minimalist styling at heart, with minimal typography, bright colours and simple graphics at heart, this campaign works perfectly.

The Guardian “The Whole Picture”

UK newspaper brand, The Guardian, commissioned London based BBH to create this eye-catching pie. The pie attempts to convey the message to their audience that they receive the full story. The advertisementis clean and is cleverly designed to convey its message. Incorporating The Guardian’s colour scheme into the design, with the use of the purple background, the lowercase g and branding located at the bottom, the piece features a simple pie chart with the legend, ‘the whole picture’ next to each key.

B&B Hotels “Bacon”

German advertisement agency, Publicis, worked on this master piece to promote bed and breakfast hotels, which is a piece you should certainly feast your eyes on. Engaging the reader with quirky manipulation, it takes a while for the art direction to really sink in but once its apparent, you’ll instantly fall in love with it. The rest of the series features a simple cheese sandwich and sausages on toast.

Scrabble Squirrel “The Surprising Power of Words”

Scrabble has been around for decades and it’s had its fair share of advertisements. However, this piece offered the tagline of “the surprising power of words” and the playful illustration of a rather large squirrel chasing a rather small fox. In the game, the word squirrel would receive more points than the word fox, which explains the idea behind the advertisement. It’s all word play! Find more great scrabble ads here.

Hubba Bubba

Chewing Gum brand, Hubba Bubba, worked with the team at DDB to create this great example of print advertising. The use of colour has a great range of depth and the focus of the lips is well executed, as they still look real. The print advertisement primarily focused on the length of the bubble gum, which is around 180cm, although the campaign may not really be of interest to children, as it appears to be trying to gain an older audience.

Monopoly

In addition to Scrabble, Monopoly is another board game that has had numerous print advertisements throughout the years since its initial release in 1923. This print advertising campaign is designed for those who already know the board game fairly well and for those who do, this campaign works extremely well. The design plays on the games construction, with the red hotels opening up the readers imagination. It was incredibly important to ensure that the same colour was used throughout the entire page so that the clothes of those in the picture could highlight the intensity of the red.

Sharpie

Pen giant, Sharpie, have produced some fantastic print advertisement designs over the years and kept up with the design trends galore. Draftfcb, an agency based in Brazil, creates these clever print advertisements with the sole tagline being “One Story. Two Points”. In the advertisement, Sharpie shows the two sides of the success of Facebook. Looking for more creative advertisements? Check out 80 more creative ads here.

Article written by Jonny Rowntree, on behalf of Elanders UK.