BS: Poster design?

Subject: BS: Poster design?
From: Deckman
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 07:59 AM

Can anyone give me some tips about how to design a poster for an upcomming house concert? Thanks, Bob(deckman)Nelson

Subject: RE: BS: Poster design?
From: Les from Hull
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 08:24 AM

There are usually some useful layouts in whatever software you are using - Microsoft Publisher or whatever. I presume you are doing it on a computer, not as nice as real poster art but a lot easier to design and to reproduce at a copy shop (if you want the posters to be bigger than your printer can do).

Otherwise, make sure the vital information (what, where, who, when, how much) is easy to read and understand, and give a contact email or 'phone number for the information you can't include.

Subject: RE: BS: Poster design?
From: Alec
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 09:41 AM

What Les said plus attention to typography.Ideally you should be looking for a font which is unusual enough to catch the eye in the first place but,at the same time,easy to read from across a street.
Da font.com is a good place to find such fonts.(free)

Subject: RE: BS: Poster design?
From: Sorcha
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 09:43 AM

No weird funky fonts. Keep the artwork away from the info.

Subject: RE: BS: Poster design?
From: Alec
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 09:50 AM

Almost forgot (& maybe slightly contradicting Sorcha)www.psychedelix.com is a particular favourite of mine. (also free)

Subject: RE: BS: Poster design?
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 09:55 AM

Don't make it too "busy".

Subject: RE: BS: Poster design?
From: Cluin
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 01:40 PM

If you care about it looking good, i.e. artistic, get somebody who knows what they're doing to design it for you.

If you just want to pass on info and make it readable, use a non-fancy font, make the main info (name, date, place, time) large and leave a lot of negative (white) space around the text. To keep it simple, have the text centered on the page.

Subject: RE: BS: Poster design?
From: Bee
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 01:43 PM

Have someone proofread the text. I once painted a glaring typo in 12 inch high letters on a 12 by 16 foot town entrance sign. Noticed it when the sign was finished. Oil based paint. Stayed up the entire night doing the fix.

Don't use more than two clearly readable fonts. Especially when using sans serif fonts (like Helvetica or Ariel) don't compress them to save space, as letters like I,T,L become harder to differentiate visually.

The smaller the poster, the simpler the graphics should be, but in any case, simple is usually better.

Try not to use colours that make your text hard to read - no black on red, purple on black, etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Poster design?
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 01:43 PM

A font without serifs is friendly to everyone and a border is effective and draws the eye in to the iformation.

Subject: RE: BS: Poster design?
From: Jean(eanjay)
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 01:46 PM

Sorry - I meant information (Bee's point on proof reading!)

Subject: RE: BS: Poster design?
From: Alec
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 03:06 PM

Whilst I still think a good display font is useful as an "eyecatcher"
what eanjay said about san serifs is a valid point.
We have found that far & away the most inclusive font we have come across is Elementary TTF.This is also available for free download from a good many sites.

Subject: RE: BS: Poster design?
From: Bert
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 03:39 PM

Get a photo of your main performer, pop it into Paint Shop Pro (or something similar) reduce it to a single color. Play around with posterization or solarizing or any of the other fun effects. Crop it so that there is space for your lettering.

Subject: RE: BS: Poster design?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 04 Feb 07 - 03:57 PM

No more than three fonts-- preferably two, one serif and one non-serif, with bold and italic of those two for variation.

No all-caps for any text you want people to read and remember-- it's the hardest type to read.

Avoid bold that is also all-caps-- that is really hard to read, and it shouts.

A little art gives life, but too much art gives headache.

A design that will work if xeroxed to half-size handbills gives you more options for less original layout cost/time.

If you want recipients to xerox and further spread it, use white paper and easy graphics to reproduce.

Size the type with viewing distance in mind. Readable from car to storefront? Or smaller, for hanging on a bulletin board people will stand in front of?

Leave plenty of white space-- it's the white space that makes the type WORK.

There are typography rules for proportion between lines of typoe as well as space between, but too hard to write. LOOK at good posters and see why they work, then use those principles.

Oh, and keep all the important stuff on the top third, so that if you mail it, and fold it for the envelope, all the grit is in the third they'll when they pull it out, and so there's no fold mark when it's posted that interrupts important info.

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Poster design?
From: Ella who is Sooze
Date: 05 Feb 07 - 09:30 AM

Who
Where
Date
Time
Web address/email for more info

Clear Font
Not too busy a background - for those with hard sight problems
Great photo or image as the catcher
Don't clutter up with unneccessary info
Make sure there's a strong contrast with any font/text on images
Prioritise the most import info to be larger, least smaller etc
Remember, most people who look at a poster will only look at it in a few seconds - you need a catcher (a good image) to make people look at it for longer. Max to look at a poster is about 10seconds, after that if there's too much info then the viewer may get bored - or be moving anyway.
EWIS

Subject: RE: BS: Poster design?
From: Alice
Date: 05 Feb 07 - 10:44 AM

Go to this page and scroll down to two poster examples I've designed for concerts.

http://my.montana.net/aliceflynn/graphics.html Click here

Both are sized about 11x17". I resized them when I put them up on my web site, but the
originals are the same size.
The vertical one had a tremendous amount of information that had to be included. DON'T write
a book and try to fit it on the poster! I was given the text to use and
I pulled it off, but most people are not going to stand there and read everything on the poster
so keep the information to the basics as much as possible.
Notice that the images used were eye catching.
If you are not experienced in graphic design, it may be best to find a designer to do it for you.
I used Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop for both of these. I had to manipulate the photos to
make them work with the type, putting a reverse white against the darker photo. I changed
the train from a black and white historic photo to a duotone.

Alice

Subject: RE: BS: Poster design?
From: Alice
Date: 05 Feb 07 - 10:46 AM

And make sure you have permission to use the image you will be reproducing.

Alice

Subject: RE: BS: Poster design?
From: Alec
Date: 05 Feb 07 - 10:49 AM

Beautiful designs,Alice.

Subject: RE: BS: Poster design?
From: Cluin
Date: 05 Feb 07 - 12:26 PM

Very nice, Alice. I know what a pain it is when they want THAT much copy included.