So you want to design materials:
posters, leaflets, stickers, banners ...
Planning your poster/leaflet/stickers/banners
1. Get the idea
- What is the purpose of your poster/leaflet/sticker/banner?
- Who is the audience? (the educational level, age, community background and
many different factors will affect the kind of material you produce)
2. Plan the content or message
The headline: a simple slogan is called for in most posters, leaflets,
stickers or banners. The fewer words used to get the message across is better;
the main thing is not to waste any space or time. But make sure that the slogan
you choose reflects the message of the campaign however, and is not simply a
clever "gimmick" and also check that it does not offend the reader. It
can be helpful to test the slogan with your members and with non-members (ask
your friends, family and neighbours what they think). Don’t use much
punctuation, except for perhaps exclamation marks in your "punch line"
or question marks where there is a question. Posters, particularly, often
include a call to action - asking the viewer to do something - so this could be
part of your slogan. Some slogans used by the ICBL and other organisations
include:
- Landmines must will be stopped
- Ban mines, clear mines, help survivors!
- Negotiate a true ban treaty: no exceptions, no loopholes, no reservations
- Are we the enemy? Ban mines now!
- Working together for a landmine free world - for the children!
3. Plan the visual
The material used for the visual or image in the poster, sticker or leaflet
may be a photograph, artist drawing, campaign logo or drawing by a child —
they can all be highly effective. Take care to use only the parts of a
photograph that are necessary to get the desired effect - crop the pictures if
necessary. Just as drawings must be bold and easily comprehensible from a
distance, so photographs must be close-up examinations of faces, figures, things
or situation that dramatise the theme.
The best materials have a strong pictorial element and brief word message
that hang together to form a highly appealing and easily understood whole.
4. Produce the product
When you have already decided what the poster is for and for whom, how to say
it in the least number of words and have found the appropriate photograph or
graphic that will go along with the text, then you are ready to execute your
plan.
Decide how you will get the design ideas on to paper. Is there a campaigner
who knows about desktop publishing (DTP)? Do you know of a DTP studio or
professional you can contract in? Also find out if the printers or a local
newspaper or magazine would provide this service. You might also think about
commissioning an artist to do the illustration and lettering.
Then decide how you will reproduce the materials. Silk-screening methods and
hand painting have largely been replaced by cheaper, quicker and more
professional methods of printing and photocopying. Find out from your printer
about the different options and the costs. Ask them what kind of artwork they
will require - sometimes a printer will typeset your text and scan in a
photograph or image and sometimes you will need to supply them with the art work
on disc or on paper.
Also ask about ways to keep your costs down, for example by using cheaper
paper or printing in fewer colours instead of full colour. Usually too, the more
copies you have printed, the cheaper each item will be (but think carefully
about whether you will be able to use or distribute everything you get printed
before printing 1000s).
Tips for posters
- if the poster should be read from a few metres away (say you are planning to
tie them to lamp posts in the street), make sure the text is bold enough
- make sure that the layout is composed so that the eye moves easily from
illustration to headline, to subtitle to text
- check that there is a focal point - to attract you to look at and read the
poster and to guide the reader
- there should be enough white space around the text and illustration.
Remember: simplicity is often more effective than complexity
Tips for leaflets
- find a good photograph or graphic to include on the front of the brochure to
attract the reader and to illustrate your main point
- write a headline that will grab attention and outline your main points
- put the action last and in bold - eg. do you want the reader to make a
donation, join the campaign or write a letter to a decision-maker?
- Include the name of the campaign and contact details at the end of the
leaflet
Tips for stickers
- choose your sticker size carefully and check how many stickers can be
printed on each sheet (for eg. 10 stickers may be printed on one A4 sheet)
- think about how they can be used in different ways - on folders, in campaign
packs etc - and make sure that their size and message is suitable for this
- because they are fairly small - keep the design and text simple
- as stickers are often cheap to produce you may want to produce the same
designs in several languages
Tips for banners
- think about where and how these will be used. Will they be carried on a
march? Will they form the backdrop for a conference? If you choose text that
is quite general a banner can be used again and again
- how will the banner be hung or held? If you are using the banner at a
conference, visit the venue and work out how it will be fixed in place. Ask
the banner makers or printers to include eyelets (for string and rope) or a
hem (for wooden sticks) for this purpose.
Checklist
- Idea: check whether the theme can be brought out in a single brief slogan
- Immediate impact: a viewer will decide at a quick glance whether they will
read on - does your design and text grab them?
- Interest: have you made the information interesting and relevant to the
reader? Are they drawn in on the human-interest angle for example?
- Information: are the facts introduced logically and well illustrated?
- Impulsion: will the material bring about an impulsion to act or feel?
- Insistence: is the viewer called into action?
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