What Makes a Good Poster?

Most people won’t look at a poster for more than a few seconds, so it needs to grab their attention and present just enough information for them to understand in that short time. This means that there is no room for detail in a poster, it is important to give just enough basic information to get people intrigued.

Scott Dylan, a creative consultant, outlines in his blog (http://www.scottdylan.ie/good-bad-poster-design/) some basic differences between good and bad poster design as follows:

• Good poster design will use a large, captivating image that takes up most of the poster and can be seen and understood from quite a distance away. It must be something eye catching, whether that is in a beautiful way or in a shocking way.
• Bad poster design will clutter up the space with many small images, which are hard to decipher from a distance. Also, bad poster design uses low quality images that don’t have a strong impact when blown-up to a large size.
• Good posters use typography and white space to pose an interesting question that makes the passer-by stop and think. They use unusual and unique fonts in a fun and playful way, and even use text to create artwork or an attractive design, so that the words themselves become part of the image.
• Bad posters have too much text, presented in a poorly-chosen font which is hard to read and most people simply walk past and ignore it. They also use too many fonts at once, which look cluttered and are hard on the eyes.
• Good posters only include the essential information, and a link to a website where people can go for further details.
• Bad posters try to cram in as much information as they can, confusing people and ruining the design.
• Good posters present the most important information in the largest font, and work their way down using smaller fonts for all less important words. This helps direct the eye down the page and conveys which information is most crucial.
• Bad posters use the same size font for all information, so that important pieces do not stand out.
• Good poster design uses colour theory to create attractive colour combinations which flatter each other.
• Bad poster design uses too many colours together, which clash, or no colour at all, which is boring.

Good Poster Design Example

An example of a striking poster is shown below. It meets most of the guidelines outlines above

Bad Poster Design Example

An example of a bad poster design is shown below:

The poster breaks many of the rules of good poster design, that is, too many small images, too much text, too much information, poor layout etc. It takes too much effort to understand it and so it will be ignored by most casual observers.