Anvil Knitwear manufactures wholesale blank apparel — the t-shirts, fleece, and activewear that decorators screen print, embroider, and brand for corporate merchandise. Their ads ran in trade publications targeting professional buyers who know the category deeply and respond to specifics: fabric weight, color range, size inclusivity, sustainability practices.

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The campaign

The "Anvil Facts" campaign gave each ad a numbered claim — a product truth presented as editorial fact — paired with a hero image that made that truth visually undeniable. Fact #58: they offer 80+ colors, so we arranged t-shirts into a color wheel. Fact #17: they size from toddler to 5X, so we stacked every cut in the line. Fact #27: they recycled 4.8 million pounds of waste in 2009, so we made yarn cones beautiful.

The concept let each ad stand alone while building a recognizable campaign identity across issues and publications. The background color was matched to the product story — teal for the size range, lavender for sustainability, lime for the kids line — giving the series visual cohesion without being rigid.

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Approach

Each ad began with a brief from The Cortina Agency's account team: product focus, key message, publication spec, deadline. I developed two concepts before creative director review, then built print-ready mechanicals to publication specifications after client approval.

The art direction challenge was making product photography that a professional buyer would find credible — not aspirational lifestyle imagery, but work that respected their expertise while still stopping them mid-page-turn. The color wheel arrangement and the stacked-sizes shot both came from asking: what's the most visually direct way to prove this claim?

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Outcomes

• Ads ran across multiple issues of Impressions and Stitches over the two-year engagement
• Production files consistently met publication standards without revision requests
• The "Anvil Facts" campaign format became a reusable template for the account