Producing Posters And Flyers

Creating a hand written poster can be easy and fun.  Posters are used in lots of ways, such as advertising an event, a local function or a village sale.  It is important to make the poster eye catching and interesting though, as this will help to advertise the event and encourage people to attend.

The Basics To Creating A Poster For Any Occasion

The basics are really important, because it is easy to fall at the first hurdle if you do not do your research and planning first.  The first rule is to create a poster that is not cluttered, without spelling errors and with the correct information displayed.

The lettering styles should be big enough to read at a distance, clear and readable.  You can, however, experiment with various lettering sizes and styles, with eye-catching illustrations, if desired to give a feel to what the event is about at a quick glance.  You can also experiment with colour, and have copies of the finished posters produced, using a colour photocopier or a printer.  You may want to use coloured card to write you poster.

Laying Out A Poster Using The Central Method

If you would like to centre the words on a poster, you will need to know where to start writing the information on your page.  First of all, measure the poster across, and then draw a very faint line exactly in the middle of the poster.  This is a guideline to help you know where to start writing.  You will also need to draw some very faint guidelines for writing your words on.  On a separate piece of paper, write out the information for your poster and the layout desired. Count each letter and spaces between letters for each line of your poster.  Write down the total numbers for each line, and then divide this number by half.  For example, if the sentence is ‘Jumble Sale’, the letters and space equals 11.  Divide it by 2, which is 5 ½.  The letter ‘e’ in the word ‘Jumble’ is the letter that occurs exactly in the middle of the sentence. You will need to write the letter ‘e’ on the central guideline you drew on the middle of the page.  You then write in the rest of the letters around the letter ‘e’ to ensure the whole sentence is written exactly in the middle of the page.  Write out your poster using a faint hard nibbed pencil, writing the information, ensuring you use the centring method, as explained, to centre all your sentences.

Once you have mapped out your poster in pencil, the sentences should be centred on your page.  You can then start to write with a calligraphy marker pen. 

Work steadily, writing over the faint written letters, using the marker pen.  It does not matter if you are slightly off from the pencilled letters, the poster will still appear central to the eye, as long as you do not write too far off from the pencilled letters.

Once you have completed your writing, leave the poster to dry, and then using a very soft eraser, rub out the faint pencilled guide lines and letters carefully, ensuring you do not smudge the letters written with the marker pen.

You may want to draw some swirls or draw some illustrations to set off your poster.  You can use different coloured card or very faint washes for effects. 

Once you have finished producing the original poster, you can have the poster copied in colour from any print shop or a coloured photocopier, ready to be displayed on notice boards etc.

Rustic Calligraphy style is a great style for producing posters and flyers.