A story doesn't have to end with a single poster.
Let's tell a deeper narrative by designing a campaign.
Text shares key messages and might include a headline,
subhead or description, business name, slogan, call to action,
and details like dates, locations or website addresses.
Photography or illustration will showcase a specific product or event
or simply convey a mood or theme. There might be one large image or multiple.
Graphic elements like shapes and lines grab attention
and guide the viewer's eye drawing attention to specific content on the poster.
These elements can be useful to make text more readable.
They might also include a business logo.
Colors help the poster stand out in a busy environment
and might relate to the business or brand.
The right color combination will be appealing to look at and enhance the design's legibility.
There. That's looking pretty good.
Where a standalone poster delivers information in one hit,
a poster campaign is made up of individual pieces that combine to promote a message.
Each piece draws out different ideas about the promotion.
The campaign might be spread out across different locations
to be experienced over time and placed.
Or the campaign might be pasted together to make a big visual impact.
When done well, the audience will be interested in each poster
while recognizing them as part of a series.
This way, they tap into emotions through repetition and recognition and ignite curiosity.
Here's a single poster. It's eye-catching and delivers key information about the event.
It is what it is. The viewer doesn't need to think too deeply about it.
In order for this poster to form a campaign,
some detail might be removed and spread out across a number of posters.
Perhaps each individual poster looks simpler
or even a bit abstract, but still communicating the intent.
The audience might stumble across this poster in one location.
Then at another time, they'll see a new poster that's part of the series,
the visuals and messaging are familiar and trigger recognition.
The new poster is different enough to communicate a larger story is at play.
When designing something to be part of a series, it's essential to work out
what can change and what needs to stay the same.
In a campaign, it's about brand building.
Each poster needs to look strong, but also work within the collection.
Let's revisit the basic elements of poster design, but through a new campaign lens.
The text changes, but the font choice,
styling, and hierarchy remains consistent across multiple posters.
The images differ, but the filter used or the style of image crop is the same.
Different colors feature, but are tied together through a key secondary color.
Graphic devices move about on each poster design, but have familiar styling and proportion.
Negative space is treated in a similar way throughout the pieces.
In a nutshell, look for ways to create visual connections
while keeping each individual poster interesting.
A call message or theme spans a poster campaign.
Each poster in the series will reflect the core message.
Language is an important part of this.
Hear the words, "Keep it clean. Keep it green."
Follow a short, sharp, rhyming pattern.
Drawing on the language of color,
perhaps the next poster in this series is focused on blue.
This poster might be about our oceans. A simple, short statement would
make sense so that the textile is consistent and a similar zoomed out image
of the natural world would also create connection.
The detailed text can simply be duplicated. This strengthens the bond between the posters.
It's easy to see how this campaign might be rolled out on even more posters.
A poster campaign featuring thoughtful or powerful imagery and texts
presents a puzzle to the audience.
As they experience each poster in the series,
they begin to put that puzzle together inspiring curiosity and engagement.