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Posters History & Types with 10 Poster Design Tips to Create Your own Eye-Catching Posters

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Design Tips & Resources

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osmanassem

Whether printed or shared in digital form, posters still to be a massively popular media format, thanks in large part to their ability to make a visual statement impact.

The poster first appeared as an advertising tool in the late 19th century, when French painter “Jules Chéret” revolutionized lithography with his “three-stone lithographic process.”

This trend would inaugurate an era of artistic poster design, led by Cheret himself, who would continue to make quite a thousand posters throughout his illustrious 30-year career.

Over time, posters have been used to express different cultural changes and the spirit of each era.

Notable examples include the art school movement in Britain and Paris within the 19th century, the Golden Age of Wartime Propaganda during World War II, the psychedelic movement of the 1960s, and therefore the explosion of pop-culture posters decorating teenagers’ walls in modern times. 

Today, posters are used for more practical applications, such as political campaigns, public-health and safety awareness, education and anything you can think of. Below we are going to discuss some of the most common types of posters in use today, along with a short description of each type and what makes them different from each other.

Types of posters

Event posters

Even in today’s digital world, event posters still being a primary tool for promoting concerts, plays and musicals, fairs, sporting events, conferences, and trade exhibitions.

Almost any type of public event is advertised through some kind of a poster, with some leaving a lasting impression on our memories.

Advertising posters

Advertising posters have given us many of modern history’s most iconic culture images.

Starting of the 20th century, brands like CocaCola, Camel, Apple, and Nike have produced posters that stood against the time.

Many of these ads were designed to be multi-purpose marketing methods, distributed through magazines, newspapers, billboards, and posters around cities.

Political posters

Some of the most famous posters are related to major moments and conflicts in human history.

During War I, the U.S. Army produced the “I Want You” poster depicting a commanding Uncle Sam urging the viewer to hitch the war effort in Europe.

In War II, Westinghouse Electric released the “We Can Do It” poster to spice up employee morale and reduce absenteeism.

Remember the iconic Barack Obama “Hope” poster in 2008, designed by artist Shepard Fairey? This poster came to represent the energy and optimism surrounding the former president’s campaign.

Movie posters

Of course, we can’t complete any discussion about posters without movie posters.

These are perhaps the most popular form of posters since the beginning of movie theaters.

How many can you bring to your mind right now? what if we talked about The Godfather, Jaws, Star Wars, Pulp Fiction, and Terminator. This posters are so remarkable as much as the movie itself.

Motivational posters

I can be you’ve seen it before if you were born before 90s: a photograph (usually of natural landscapes) surrounded by a black border paired with statement about hope, dream, hard work, and teamwork written in bold text with a small motivational text underneth. 

Nowadays, these posters will look dated.

But motivational posters can come in more modern and different designs.

Travel posters

Posters had been used perfectly for the travel industry because these make a strong visual encouragement.

Tourism agencies and travel companies have used travel posters since the early 20th century to encourage travel to different destinations locally and world wide. Governments also used this posters to increase the tourism rates in their countries.

Just use a dreamy image of a place, add the place name with the photo of happy people and you got yourself a successful poster.

Educational/Informative posters

These aren’t limited to the use in the academic purposes but also in corporate worlds and governmental authorities to convey instructions, safety awareness, interesting facts, announcements, and more.

Key Elements To Consider Before Designing

The principal element is the branding guidelines, You need to add the brand spirit to your design.

Secondly, learn about your audience and do your market survey. 

You must know how you can attract them and trigger their emotions. 

You must know their taste and preferences to define the tone and outlook of your design.

For instance, you should understand the nature of the industry you are going to make the poster for.

Lastly, to check out the competitors, you have to know where they stand. 

Shake their places by following the competition and go the extra mile to your audience and do something even more targeted. 

You have to take a look at their styles and message and come up with something to engage your audience with and to follow the trend if possible. 

Top tips for creating your own posters

So, without further ado, let’s get down to reading smart tips and techniques for designing a poster. 

Tip 1: Create A Mood Board

When it comes to designing, you can’t directly jump into filling the space. You have to posses a proper planning in mind as to which elements should be highlighted more and to arrange all the aspects from fonts to patterns to images and style. 

So, first, create a mood board where you’ll gather all of your ideas including your client’s requirement.

Mix and match the different components and elements to create an imagination of you poster design. 

This trick will save much time and help you understand how to use the elements that can enhance the outlook.

Tip 2: Readability

Your poster design won’t achieve its goal if it’s not readable. And by readability, it means that a person standing at the correct distance of the place “as you might need to make a billboard on a highway” can read most of its content clearly. You need to focus on the below three major aspects. 

Headline – Use an attention-seeking and east to read font, keeping its size big enough to gather attention.

Details – Use images and other design patterns that can reflect uniformity and innovation. Be unique with your approach, as that will bring you more viewers closer.

Smoothness – Each item should look like blending into another without any interruption. There should be a proper flow and harmony between all the ingredients to attract the viewers.

Check the posts below for better typography selection:

Typography: The Anatomy of a Letter

Typography: The Different Types of Fonts, When to Use Them, and How!

Tip 3: Prioritize Your Message

What is the main purpose of any poster? to deliver a message, right? 

Therefore, you need to identify your priority. 

Determine that one element that can fulfill the purpose of your poster design. You need to revolve the rest of the components around it. 

If that purpose is being achieved through the content, then the artwork will surround the typography. 

The background are going to be supported on your typography, as well. 

The entire poster are going to be created to spotlight the font that will catch the attention. So, that’s how you grasp on to the element that affects the center of attention.

Furthermore, your selection of font, style, and tone of images should also be relevant to the needs of your target audience to catch progressive outcomes. 

It will make your poster more focus on the target and result-driven.

Tip 4: The Trendy Touch

You cannot go blind when it comes to following trends, but that also doesn’t mean to follow the herd.

You need to hunt inspiration from the ongoing trends and see how you’ll bring something innovative for your poster design.

This is the trick to reinforce effectiveness. Fascinating it’s that you simply can get trendy recommendations on every aspect of your design from which font to settle on to what sorts of abstractionism can indulge viewers.

Keep a tab on the newest ins and outs of the market to enjoy the limelight.

Talking about trends, vintage/retro designs never leave the market. Many bands like better to get their posters designed with a vintage touch.

Dawid Ryski created a vintage-style poster design for a famous band that exposed quintessential Florence along side the machine-related elements as that was the core message of the group.

Tip 5: Be Versatile

You can either believe typography to deliver the message or make use of the various components which will contribute to forcing the viewer and infusing the core message.

A perfect poster design is that the one that highlights its message from every corner, the color shades, font’s style, text, artwork, and therefore the formation. of these elements contribute equally to delivering purpose.

A versatile poster doesn’t stick with one style. it’s going to have a touch of doodles mixed into abstraction styles.

Such designs target a various group of the audience to bring out prosperous outcomes.

Your design will stand out, depicting unmatched creativity.

For instance, inspect the Rocket kid poster design above. As you’ll see that not only the typography highlights the message, but even the image fulfils the aim also .

How beautifully the poster is meant with none cluttered graphics.

Tip 6: Minimalism

Design is hollow without the concept of minimalism. Whether it’s about creating a logo or designing a billboard if you learn to practice the trick to a minimalist approach, you’ll be ready to generate fascination with selective input.

You get to experiment with different fonts, styling patterns and artwork all consumed with creativity to draw in viewers by triggering emotions.

Minimalism gives you a great many opportunities to include the core elements of branding.

You can deliver the message, add attractions, provides a touch of uniformity, and make certain to get revenues.

However, there’s a misconception regarding the minimalist approach that it’s quick to make .

A minimalist design is time-efficient, but still, it needs full concentration and smart getting to create outcomes.

You cannot add a component or two and expect outstanding results.

Just inspect the poster design of Wine City above. the colors are subtle, the artwork is straightforward but unique, and therefore the overall feel is sophisticated.

The font of the poster is that the simplest, yet the foremost creative one. With such a couple of numbers of components, the poster is inspiring enough to fulfil its purpose.

The font of the poster is that the simplest, yet the foremost creative one. With such a couple of numbers of components, the poster is inspiring enough to fulfil its purpose.

Tip 7: Declutter Your Design

When it involves decluttering your design, it doesn’t mean to reduce the creativity or follow a minimalist approach.

You need to eliminate all the weather and factors that make hindrance in delivering the core message.

It happens that designers get over excited and incorporate elements that happen to possess little to no importance.

So, once you end up through with your design, take a comprehensive look and critically analyse it to ascertain what’s creating a hindrance or which factor may be a complete misplacement.

You can give the simplest judgement of your work, so be honest and specialise in the components.

Check the poster design of Marcos Mendex Clothing above, the poster though tried to picture modern clothing styles but the extra-large font “M” hinders the entire view of the dress.

The intention to form the brand initial prominent has spoiled the planning .

Tip 8: Amp Up The Colors

Colors are the important soul of a billboard . Just a look can engage thousands of viewers.

New trends are being introduced within the design industry for using colors in several ways.

From blending transitions of multiple colors to using the technique of shadows to deliver the message, the tricks continue and on to fascinate the viewers.

As per the new trends, there’s no got to stick with the monotone color palette. you’ll continue with bold and vibrant color shades.

Bold colors can pique the audience quickly and help in achieving the goals conveniently. you’ll create a balance within the artwork.

For instance, if your background may be a little too colorful, keep the remainder of the aesthetics subtle. don’t create a harsh look by only sticking to the brighter color shades.

Check below posts for making a perfect color palette:

5 Types of Branding Color Palettes That Reign Supreme

The DNA of a branding color palette

3 Ways to Create a Color Palette That’ll NEVER Fail You

Tip 9: Storytelling

Triggering emotions is that the most beneficial trick. you’ll proficiently direct attention and convey more people closer to your poster. It helps in achieving the core purpose effortlessly.

However, such posters require tons of your time and energy .

You have to seem closely to work out the factor you would like to be incorporated into your story or concept. you’ll stir some emotions or create a bond visually.

For instance, the poster design of Woodford Reserve (above) tells about several aspects.

Firstly, the mention of Manhattan Experience is justified by the incorporation of buildings and therefore the retro feel.

Secondly, ny is that the most happening spot, and therefore the poster expertly speaks about it.

From its every corner, you get the sensation that it’s knowledgeable poster design with font style, color theme, and artwork all leading towards the core message of the corporate .

Tip 10: Never Forget To Add A Call To Action

How will you be ready to serve the aim without adding a call to action in your poster?

Your poster design are going to be considered incomplete until it’s a call to action. you would like to say on where the viewers should come, whom to speak to, and what to try to to after getting convinced or persuaded together with your message.

A call to action is sort of a proper gateway to channel the leads.

Without adding it in your design, you’ll never be ready to bring your customers closer.

You will persuade them with all of your excellent work but won’t provide a medium to succeed in bent you or to possess the services mentioned within the poster.

Therefore, call to action is of immense significance, but it involves marketing or promotion.

Some of the marketers like better to add proper address , emails, and get in touch with number while others like better to attack the QR code to scan.

Whichever method you employ , do lookout of providing an appropriate spot to the decision to action.

Resources:

inkbotdesign.com

piktochart.com

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