• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, June 1, 2015

A number of publishers and broadcasters have formed in-house creative shops and now outdoor advertisers are getting in on the act, too. Outfront Media, formerly known as CBS Outdoor, announced the launch of Outfront Studio, an in-house boutique agency offering advertisers customized design services for out-of-home displays.

Led by national creative director Eddy Herty, Outfront Studio offers custom design services for outdoor ad campaigns on any scale, ranging in size from national to local, with creative and business staff organized into regional teams to serve advertisers of all sizes.

Their creative design work will draw on advertiser input as well as Outfront Studio’s own proprietary research and industry analytics.

Among other benefits, Outfront hopes the new in-house creative shop will help lower the barrier to entry for new advertising clients that don’t have outdoor ad creative already on hand. It also aims to streamline the process for established outdoor advertisers, in part by having design teams coordinate directly with account teams.

One of the studio’s first design projects, for Georgia Tech’s Yellow Jackets football team, depicted players coalescing from swarms of bees.

Previously known as CBS Outdoor, Outfront was spun off by CBS Corp. as an independent company last year, and converted into a real-estate investment trust in order to lower its tax burden. Last October, it completed the acquisition of most of the outdoor advertising assets of Van Wagner Communications, making it the country’s second-largest outdoor advertising company in terms of billboard assets, after Clear Channel Outdoor.