If you're scared of heights avoid this elevator.

Sidewalk Chalkboard Ads - The good and the bad

There is a flower shop right outside of where I exit the subway every morning that uses a sidewalk blackboard with promotional messages. Recently, the cleverness of the messages and quality of the design has gone down significantly, so I can only assume that the witty copywriter no longer works there. For a brief time, it would really brighten my day after riding that miserable subway and even once convinced me to use their services.

When done well, a sandwich-board-style chalkboard or message board can be a cheap easy way of targeting local customers. Just as with all other marketing messages, you should add your brand's signature touch or flair to this basic promotional medium.

Good use of sidewalk chalkboard ad space from a flower shop:

Questionable use of sidewalk chalkboard ad space from a dive bar:

Design Tip #1 - Know the trade abbreviations

Here are a few key abbreviations that you should know if you're going into the design or advertising field. Feel free to comment with additional ones I missed:

RFP - Request for Proposal - This comes up with any new business pitches in advertising.

FPO - For Placement Only - This is used in layouts when an image hasn't been selected yet or you are waiting for a high resolution version.

DPI - Dots per inch - This is in reference to image file resolution. Two standard sizes are 72 dpi, which is low resolution and used for websites and on screen imagery and 300 dpi, which is the minimum resolution for images that must print.

PPI - Points per inch (same as DPI)

FTP - File Transfer Protocol - This is the best way to send large files and is necessary to use when uploading website files to a hosting server. When working on a PC, the IE browser should work as an ftp program, but on a Mac you'll need a program. The most commonly used programs are Fetch and Cyberduck.