Out Of Home (OOH)

OOH, or OUT OF HOME, refers to designs that are–as you may have guessed–living outside. This means anything from billboards, to subway ads, buses, train wraps, and more. If something is OOH, that doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be printed. It can be digital or print, especially with the rise in digital billboards and other similar advertising units both across NYC and the country.

When designing for OOH specifically, there are a few questions you’ll want to ask:

• Can your audience walk right up to the piece? Or is it only viewed from a far distance? This will help with best resolution & design practices when it comes to printed pieces

• How quickly is this person going to be reading your ad?

  • Billboards have to be quick to digest, since the viewer is driving by it in a flash

  • In contrast, on the NYC subway, people would rather read the same ad over & over than make eye contact with a stranger (sad, but true!). With this in mind, it’s a place you can really play with copy-heavy designs

There’s so much more to design than just making something look pretty! OOH is the perfect example of that.

Stay tuned for a future newsletter, where we dive deeper into designing for an ad that’s going to be printed vs. digital. Designing for print is essentially wearing three hats: 1) designer 2) mathematician, and 3) foreign language expert (hello terms like CMYK, ppi, substrate, and more!)