Design which works

It is not easy to put yourself in someone else's situation - but for designers working on advertising concepts for the senior market, they must do exactly that, and try to understand how their images will be seen and received by the consumers.

Human eyesight is at its peak at the age of 10, after which it begins a long steady decline. After 40, the crystalline lens tends to yellow and harden while the pupil contracts; opening and closing becomes slower. This contraction requires more external light - two to three times more than that required by adolescents. From the age of 50, it is said that nearly 90% of people require spectacles.

The older you get, the more difficult it becomes to distinguish certain colours. Blue, green, pink and violet, become difficult to identify. All pastel shades merge into a uniform halo. Mixtures of dark colours and pale colours are scarcely perceptible.

To overcome these problems, designers must use high contrast in communication destined for the over 50s. In TV advertising spots, press ads, posters and direct marketing mailings, foregrounds and backgrounds must be sufficiently contrasted and in particular, the use of red against blue should be avoided in order to prevent the consumer seeing a monochrome effect. On packaging, reflective and shiny surfaces should be avoided.

Difficulty in adapting to sudden changes is also a big issue for older viewers. Subjects moving suddenly from darkness to light, and vice versa, or from one colour to another, destabilises the vision. It then takes some time for the eye to readjust to seeing clearly again. Changing images too often runs the risk of causing visual chaos.

Advertisers to the over 50s should completely reject the MTV video style of many scenes cut into a very short space of time. They should go for longer lasting shots, a more linear approach and long formats such as, for example, infomercials lasting up to one minute, screened during day-time schedules.

This deterioration in eyesight also means designers should use a type body size larger than normal. 10 point is the minimum, with something between 12 and 14 point the ideal.

In addition, some typographic fonts are more difficult to read than others. Advertisers should try to avoid fonts that are too complex or unusual and choose styles such as Times, Garamond or Century, with good inter-linear spacing for legibility.

At Senioragency, with our specialised creative teams, we put into practice all of these considerations and many more, helping our clients achieve maximum response.