AskIH: What do you guys think about the essentials when designing a simple event poster?
AskIH: What do you guys think about the essentials when designing a simple event poster?
I think the 3 essentials needed are layout, color, and typography.
Layout.
A structured poster would allow the reader to very easily capture all the information present on the poster. Of course, this is where the size of each component (e.g. Title of event, details, contact) will also impact the layout. The title should at be the biggest, follow by the details, then contact. The components should also be aligned accordingly.
Color.
One of the most important things to impart information to the reader. The overall color of the poster will determine the mood, feel, and readability of the poster. The colors used on the font should also contrast with the background so you don't have to squint your eyes to read the text. Breaking colors may be used in the poster to capture attention.
Typography.
With great typography, a poster would not look too plain even though it's empty. This means that the title font should be bold and clear. The details part should be have proper spacing between the lines. Following the hierarchy of the text in the poster would also create great results. (E.g. If the title font is h1, then the details text should be h3.)
What do you guys think? Any other important things to consider when designing a poster?
It's funny I just had to make a poster for my wife's photography business the other day. I think you've captured the most important things. One thing I question slightly - "The title should at be the biggest, follow by the details, then contact".
A poster is essentially a glorified landing page so if it has a CTA then this needs to maybe be more prominent. Ironically I didn't follow my own advice here as making the contact details bigger changed the feel of the page (makes it tackier looking when aiming for a luxury look/feel).
I think in certain cases where the contact is important you can create a tear off contact information section for your viewers to take home. However, that should only hold true when dealing with hiring or probably audition posters.
For events however, I think the contact needs not to be prominent, as people who are genuinely interested will actually go look them up on social media.
Your idea of contact details being a CTA did intrigue me though. I've never did though about them like that before. Thanks for the reply!
When I'm creating an event poster [for mostly music & print], I think the big essentials that could also fall under Typography, but could easily stand alone, would be legibility, visual hierarchy and the connection to the actual event; which could be considered theme or identity. I believe these things are incredibly significant and also the least talked about.
Theme: This can depend on a few factors such as artists playing, the genre or music and type of event. One sort of unconscious rules for me that come to mind if they pertained to say a Jazz festival, is to base the design of things upon the first and the more important element that is listed in the information. So if the event is bigger because it happens every year and it's cherished by the community say, then that should be the main focus. But if it's maybe the first time you're making the event and it's a one-off then, this can allow the creator to be a little more loose and liquidy with their type. Especially if we harken back to the great Blue Note Records and base this Jazz festival event poster off of one of their LP cover designs. I feel paying homage and flipping the style of something familiar and important that also attracts the type of audience we're looking for, that goes hand in hand with Visual Hierarchy.
Visual Hierarchy: I've often heard people say that the events name is more important than the actual event, something to get stuck in the event-goers mind(sort of like a McDonalds on every street corner in America). Though, sometimes this isn't the case and it's more of a focus on the artists playing, especially if they are bigger names at smaller events(back to the more important element). It depends on the audience that is viewing your poster, for you to understand what is important to them so you can decide where the focus should be on certain element for visual hierarchy. This is hard and could take great skill in being able to understand the perspective of a potential audience. From poster to poster this is always morphing, from the audience experience, to the type of atmosphere of the event, to the type of artists. Everyone has their own preferences in this sort of thing so there are no hard and fast rules, besides it always changing. This is why Visual Hierarchy can be very important and least talked about because it can be complex if we want to think about interaction.
Legibility: This is sort of a sub-topic within Typography and it's just as important as anything else. Legibility shouldn't be so diminished. If I am struggling to read the event info, you're wasting money and my time. This isn't just about font choice it's about visual contrast which can play a part for your color choices as well. Which then goes back to audience experience with the poster. You really have to be a sort of pseudo-psychologist within design if you really want to appease and appeal to a wide variety of people for your event, but making sure the audience can read the key details should be strongly focused on before you get into the wants. While I don't like to set rules for design, because there's something wrong with me for needing to break them, I think white text on black or black on white, in making sure your font is actually legible is a decent way to start in covering a lot of important aspects for designing a event poster.
*I think user experience plays a pivot role within design and should always be a part of the discussion. It is involved, as it should be, in every aspect of design and maybe I should refactor my list listed in terms of essentials, but maybe because there is no focus on it, it's easier to illustrate its importance.
Wow thanks for the very detailed reply!
I have thought about theme, but I guess not enough to put them into words like you did. Really great explanation on that by the way.
I've never thought about visual hierarchy as an element when designing a poster before, but it does make a lot of sense after you explain. I like to think of it as another level of layout, where you take the experience of the audience into account.
As for legibility, I wholly agree, as sometimes people like to keep certain elements of the poster while some encourage a little creativity.
The whole point behind user experience is just really putting yourself in the shoes of the audience, and think what they think.