Poster Making
Senior 3 · Fine Arts
Poster Making
Lesson 4 of 4
25 min
"Your poster is ready, but the photo looks fuzzy, there is a thin white line down one side, and the last word of your headline has been cut off." Every one of those problems could have been avoided on the computer, before a single sheet was printed. In this lesson you will turn your chosen rough into a finished digital poster, set up correctly for printing and for phones, and then improve it through testing and critique.
Definition
Trim line: the edge where the printed sheet is cut to its final size.
Bleed: an extra strip of background, usually 3 mm, printed beyond the trim line so that no white edge shows if the cut is slightly off.
Safe area: the area inside the margins where all important text and images must sit.
Proof: a test print or screen version made to check a design before the final print.
Critique: a structured discussion of a work's strengths and weaknesses, aimed at improving it.
Iteration: one round of testing and improving; a design usually goes through several.
Export: saving a copy of the design in a format for a particular use, such as PDF for printing or PNG for a phone.
| Use | Format | Settings |
|---|---|---|
| Printing at a print shop | A3 page, fonts embedded, with bleed if the shop asks for it | |
| Printing on a school printer | PDF or PNG | A4 or A3; PNG at 300 dpi |
| Phone and social media | PNG or JPG | portrait, for example 1080 × 1350 pixels; enlarge small text so it reads on a phone |
Screens make colour from light (RGB) while printers use inks (CMYK), so bright screen colours, especially vivid greens and blues, often print duller. Always look at a printed proof before the final print run.
Use your own photographs and drawings wherever possible. Otherwise use images that are in the public domain or have an open licence such as CC BY, and write the credit in small type on the poster. Copying a picture from a website without permission is not allowed, even for a school poster. Ask permission before photographing people, and ask parents before using photos of children.
A first digital draft is never the final poster. Each round of the cycle in Figure 2 improves it:
| Final checklist | Yes / No |
|---|---|
| The key message is understood in about three seconds | |
| The headline is readable from the planned distance | |
| There is a clear first, second and third | |
| All elements are aligned, and the details are grouped | |
| No more than two typefaces and three main colours | |
| The poster passes the greyscale test | |
| All text is inside the safe area; the background runs into the bleed | |
| Images are sharp at print size and allowed to be used | |
| Spelling, dates, times and places are checked | |
| The call to action is clear and complete |
Present your finished poster together with its brief, your thumbnails and versions, and a short evaluation: what you changed after testing, and why.
Worked example 1: is this photo sharp enough?
Gatete's photo is 1200 pixels wide. (a) What is its resolution if it is printed 20 cm wide? (b) And if it is printed 40 cm wide?
(a) inches, so pixels per inch. That is acceptable for a poster seen from a few metres.
(b) inches, so pixels per inch, which will look blurred. Print it smaller, or take a larger photo.
Worked example 2: page size with bleed
The print shop asks for an A3 file with 3 mm bleed on every side. What size should the exported page be?
Width: . Height: .
The bleed is added on both sides, so the page grows by 6 mm in each direction. After trimming, the poster is exactly A3.
<em>Poster design tutorial | Inkscape</em>, from the Logo Champion channel. Follow how the page is set up, how images and text are placed in layers, and how the finished design is exported; then compare the steps with your own workflow.
Warning
Text cut off at the edge. Anything outside the safe area may be trimmed. Check the margins on every version.
Stretched photos. Always scale images with the lock (proportions) on; a stretched face or object looks wrong at once.
Losing your work. Save often and keep numbered versions; never work only on the one copy.
Tip
Proof, test, ask, revise. Three people, three seconds, one question: "What is this asking you to do?"
Practice
What are the bleed, the trim line and the safe area?
Why should a poster be printed as a proof before the final print run?
An A4 poster (210 × 297 mm) needs 3 mm bleed. What size is the page with bleed?
A photo 2400 pixels wide is printed 30 cm wide. Find its resolution in pixels per inch, to the nearest whole number.
Write a "two stars and a wish" critique for a poster whose headline is clear and whose image is strong, but whose date and place are in tiny text in different corners.
After testing, three viewers could not say what Kalisa's poster asked them to do. Which parts of the poster should he revise first? Justify your answer.
Production task. Produce your poster digitally from your brief and rough, take it through at least two rounds of the refinement cycle, and present the final poster with your versions and a short evaluation.
1. The bleed is extra background beyond the page edge; the trim line is where the sheet is cut; the safe area is inside the margins, where all important content must sit.
2. Screen colours and sizes differ from print; a proof shows the real colours, sharpness and readability at distance before money is spent.
3. mm by mm.
4. inches, so pixels per inch.
5. For example: Star: the headline is readable from across the room. Star: the image makes the topic clear at once. Wish: group the date and place together, larger, near the call to action.
6. The key message and the call to action, because the test shows the audience did not understand what to do. He should check that there is one clear message, make the call to action larger and more contrasting, and place it at the end of the reading path.
7. Check: numbered versions, test notes from audience members, completed checklist, and an evaluation that explains the changes.
Compare version 1 of your poster with your final version. Which single change made the biggest difference, and what did the audience test teach you that you could not see by yourself?
Further reading
Sources and credits
