kids ad layouts - utilitarian but fun

What's the most important thing about cartoons you need to sell? The characters, of course!
So the covers of these comics have a big picture of the main characters. That way you can see them from across the store. But they also have smaller images of the other characters in the book to tease you and let you know there is more stuff inside.
The big picture attracts your attention, then the smaller ones keep your attention. Logical and appealing.
These ghost characters in white line act as a nice design as well as tell the story.

cereal boxes and cereal ads

More logic of design. The biggest pictures are the main characters. The biggest type tells the important points. The smallest type nobody really reads and they know that. That's why they try to get the message across with big headings.
All elements are logically and neatly arranged around the page. Most elements are horizontal or vertical. The odd element is on a diagonal and that draws attention to it. If everything was on an angle, there would be no focus on anything.
All the header lettering is cartoony. The body text is generic and easy to read.
Certain sections of text or ideas are separated by a lined box or a box of color behind it. These lines and boxes are really handy for breaking up the natural monotony of too much text. It makes it seem like there is less to read and that's important.

comic ads

USE HEADINGS!

I'm a real fan of headings. They instantly let you know what the text is about and then you can decide whether you want to spend your time reading the details underneath or not.
This kind of layout looks easier to do than it is-especially the ads that have a lot of information on them.
This could easily be cluttered, but careful arrangement makes it all fun to look at and easy to read.

The word FREE has automatic appeal, so it is always big.
Big cartoon characters-small generic characters. More logic.

Logic, logic, logic makes for good design.