Advertisements for USA Dance
Below are a few different advertisements that I designed for USA Dance, the governing body of ballroom dance in the United States. The interesting part of these ads is finding the balance between advertising the event, the energy and passion of ballroom and Latin dance, and staying within the style guide boundaries set by the American Dancer Magazine.
2010 IDSF World DanceSport Championship LatinThe 2010 International DanceSport Federation World DanceSport Championship Latin held in New York City in November of 2010 featured the best Latin dancers in the world. With athletes from 77, the Marriott at the Brooklyn bridge buzzed with the energy and tension of Olympic level competition.
Most of the target audience would already know what the event was advertising, so we placed emphasis on the city of New York. This was a risky but successful move because it broke away from typical ballroom advertising which employed the use of dancers holding a pose. We also capitalized on the fact that it was a world and Latin event. A subtle black gradient in InDesign helped the sky blend the sky and text together and create a strong, simple, and bold design. |
USA Dance Nationals DanceSport
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Utah DanceSport ChampionshipsDesigned originally for a USA Dance National Qualifying Event to be held in Salt Lake City, Utah, we tried something different from the usual desert shots of Utah or shots of Temple Square.
In contrast to using dark colors to create a classy, sophisticated, yet bold look, white was used as the main background color to create an inviting feel. Text was kept to a minimum. We wanted to convey the most information without cluttering the ad. |
National Collegiate ChallengeAfter redesigning the USA Dance National DanceSport Championship advertisement, we decided to give all of the national level competitions similar design to maintain some semblance of continuity. This is why we decided to employ the use of a dark background for the National Collegiate DanceSport Challenge advertisement.
The white swoosh across the page is a leftover from a previous design of the Collegiate Championship ad. We kept it to give the ad some continuity in design. |
Showcase of ChampionsTo celebrate the 30th anniversary of the National DanceSport Championships, USA Dance invited 10 time national champion Victor Fung and his partner Anastasia Muravyeva, as well as 10 time national champion Eugene Katsevman and Maria Manusova to perform.
A simple design, the image to the right is a poster that announced the event. The difficulty in this project lay in finding a way to fit two couples on a page without making either seem "less" than the other. This effect was achieved by creating a gradient on the edge of each photo in InDesign so that it would fade into each other, as well as compensating for the slightly lower placement of Victor Fung by placing his name above him. |