Your favorite ads + Figma = ad templates you can use forever
Remember tracing paper in art class? It's like that but on steroids.
I’m not a great designer. If you’re one - respect.
Thankfully, there are plenty out there and I get to see their best work in my social media feeds.
And as someone who offers creative services, I am so glad that tools like Magicbrief and Figma exist. With this combo, you can quickly save your favorite designs, create a reusable template, and efficiently crank out many variations for many brands - with tweaks as necessary.
This is how I do it:
Doom scroll until I find ads I like
Send the link to my laptop so I can save it to Magicbrief
Download the static asset to my hard drive
Paste it into Figma
Create new frames in the appropriate dimensions for ads (9x16, 1x1, etc)
Trace over the original ad’s elements, grouping, and then moving to my newly created frame
Adjusting and tweaking copy, visuals, or any other element as desired to make the ad relevant for my client
Best part is that 5 days ago I didn’t know a lick of Figma. I used to use Photoshop to repurpose ad templates I liked, but always found the workflow super limiting and not conducive to generating lots of variants (required for testing).
Last week, my team and I wanted to replicate this Jasper ad battlecard ad for our client Sudowrite.
This Wednesday morning, I watched this video tutorial on Figma basics.
Then, quickly churned out 6 versions of this ad with headline tweaks, some changes to the icons, and swapped out features and benefits - obviously.
I’ve also tried Canva for this - also didn’t love it. With Figma, this whole process from start to finish maybe took me ~25 minutes.
Best part is I can quickly change copy, color, layout, etc on each of these in literal minutes and then pop out another crop of variations.
For existing Figma users, this is the most boring post ever. But for folks who are still in the Photoshop / Canva world - this could be eye-opening.
Reasons to do this:
Inspiration and benchmarking:
Collecting ads you admire provides a source of inspiration and sets benchmarks for quality and creativity. It helps in understanding what makes an ad effective, such as its layout, color scheme, typography, and call-to-action placement.
Efficiency in design process:
By creating wireframe templates based on these ads, you can streamline the design process. Templates serve as a starting point, reducing the time and effort required to design from scratch for each new campaign.
Consistency and scalability:
Templates ensure consistency across your advertising campaigns while allowing for scalability. You can easily adapt and tweak them for different products, services, or target audiences without losing the core design elements that make your ads effective.
Testing and optimization:
Having a set of templates based on successful ads allows for systematic testing and optimization. You can experiment with different elements (ex. headlines, images, CTA buttons) within a proven framework to see what works best for different verticals and use cases.
Keep up with trends:
Advertising trends evolve rapidly. Regularly update your collection of inspirational ads and templates to reflect current best practices and design trends.
If anyone is curious about learning more - let me know in the comments. I can share my figma file for folks to pick through and/or record a tutorial of the workflow.
Share this with your designers and creatives!