Creative Skills: Design

Paying attention to the design of your leaflets and posters will give your group a professional and dynamic image. Luckily, it’s not too hard either!

Getting your message right

As with any communication you need to pick out the core essence of your campaign message, and identify who you want to communicate it to. Write a ‘brief’ to help you keep focused, and work in a team so you can bounce ideas off each other.

With your target audience in mind, you can set about simplifying the complex campaigning issue in such a way as to motivate them to engage with it. Don’t attempt to explain everything on one poster, nobody is going to squint at tiny text! Think about how people will react when they read it.

Choosing a design

The next challenge is to catch someone’s eye and, assuming a very short attention span, convey all the information necessary to convince them to take whatever action it is that you are promoting.

Getting their Attention

MPs had trouble ignoring these petitions for the Treat AIDS Now campaign.

A few things eyes go for are:

• Big capital letters
• Bold, thick fonts instantly imply SHORT, IMPORTANT MESSAGE, READ ME NOW. However, it is much easier for your eye to read lowercase letters, and fonts with serifs, like Times Roman so bear this in mind for big sections of text.
• Drop caps, as used in newspapers, make the first letter of a paragraph huge. This gives the eye a focal point that leads directly into the paragraph.
• Be creative and contemporary. Think different but avoid being too complex or clever.
• Images grab eyes above anything else.
  • People, and more importantly faces, come top of the list! Be careful where you place them and where they lead the eye e.g. if your person is looking left, have them on the right of the poster so they are looking towards the text.
  • Circles or circular images focus your eye on a particular spot. When your eye scans a poster it typically follows a ‘Z’ pattern from a focus point, so make sure these lead into, not away from your information.

Communicating your message

Don’t put too much detail into your design, choose the most important information. For an event this would be:

• what it is
• why people should go
• where it’s happening
• when it’s happening
• contact details

Branding

Branding will help people to make the links between all your different posters and realise how active you are! You could choose a consistent style, a particular logo (such as People & Planet’s), font or paper colour. Once you’ve arrived at a style you’re happy with, use one poster as a template for the next!

Creating your design

Using computers

• Hand drawn text can be just the effect you are after sometimes. It can imply an informal, friendly, human feel. On the other hand, a clean design from a computer package may be more readable and can look more professional.
• Desktop publishing packages like Publisher, Quark XPress, Adobe Pagemaker etc. can be really handy tools if you have the time to learn how to use them. Alternatively, Powerpoint is simpler to use. Also, all is not lost if you are stuck with Word, Word Perfect or Open Office.
• Clip-art is a collection of photos, pictures and cartoons that you can use to enhance your design work. But avoid the temptation to clutter the page with abstract, irrelevant images which reduce the impact of your campaigning message. Warning: it can look a bit rubbish, especially if overused.
• Fancy typefaces, or fonts, can also be used to spice up your designs. Don’t forget why Times Roman is so popular though - it is more readable than most other fonts.

Photocopying

Unless you are producing well over 500 copies, photocopying will be the cheapest option for reproducing your design.

• As greys do not often come out clearly after photocopying, and colour photocopying is very expensive, you’re best to stick to a black & white design.
• Coloured paper is often a cheap alternative to plain white paper, but remember that the black text might not be as legible if you choose a dark colour. Be aware that it is more difficult to find recycled coloured paper for use in photocopiers.
• Invert your design. This way the colour of the paper shows through the black background, which can help your poster stand out.
• Coloured toner. Many photocopy shops have a machine which has either a red or blue toner cartridge in it, which you can use instead of the usual black toner at little extra cost.
• Familiarise yourself with what your university has in the way of copying facilities.
• Ask your local copying shop what they can do - if you explain what you want and your constraints, they can often give good advice.

Professional printing

This is not the same as photocopying - it gives a better quality, but it’s much more complicated. The printing process involves running film and cutting plates, which are then used on the printing press to reproduce your design on paper. The set-up costs are very high and the running costs are very low, so it is only a valid option for runs of over 1000 copies.

Printing in colour costs four times as much in set-up costs as printing in black, white and greys. If you need vast numbers of copies, talk to a local printing company. For advice on this, especially around environmental issues, you can always contact us.