Sometimes the best print ads are the simplest. Ads that make the viewer double-take with a smart and striking subversion of a familiar image can stick in the memory for a long time – which might explain why the internet is still talking about one particularly brilliant example from 2008.
When Toyota announced itself as the sponsor of the Bulgarian Tennis Federation, it did so with a delightfully simple print ad featuring tennis rackets positioned to look like the Toyota logo. And that's it. No hidden message, no clever tagline. Just a singularly effective piece of visual poetry.
And once again, the ad, created by Bulgaria's New Moment New Ideas agency, is making waves online. It recently resurfaced in Reddit's r/DesignPorn channel, where users are fawning over the clever visual trick.
"It's executed so well that it makes me feel Toyota sponsored the event only to make this happen," one user comments, while another adds, "Incredible. Seeing something that seems genuinely thought out and not done with AI." But as one user points out, a wider angle would probably reveal something slightly less elegant: "The two people on the right side what have to be at some crazy ass angles for that to even be possible."
From brilliant road safety ads to minimal McDonald's designs, we've seen plenty of old ads resurface on Reddit over the last few years. It's clear that whatever technological advances impact (or threaten) designers, there's nothing more timeless than a well-designed ad.
