One idea per poster

People read a poster while walking past it. They give it a few seconds, often less, and then they’re gone. Everything I design for a wall starts from that small window of attention.

So each poster gets one idea. Not a summary of the whole event, not every date and every name, just the single thing someone should remember as they keep walking. The rest can live on a website or in the program.

Find the one thing

Choosing that idea is the hard part, and it happens before any layout. I ask the organizers what they’d want a stranger to repeat to a friend. The answers are usually too long at first. We cut them down together until one short phrase or image does the work.

Once the idea is clear, the form can be very simple. A single shape, a strong color, a few words set large. Simple isn’t the same as easy, though. With so little on the page, every proportion shows.

Let the type carry it

On most posters, the words are the image. I choose one typeface and use it at two or three sizes at most. The largest line is the idea itself, set big enough to read from across the street.

Color does the rest. A single strong ground with one contrasting color for the type is usually enough to stand out on a crowded wall. A third color rarely adds attention, and it often takes some away from the words.

For a series, I keep the system fixed and change one element per poster: the color, the shape or the phrase. Seen together, they read as a family. Seen alone, each one still makes its single point.

Test it at a distance

I print every serious version and pin it up across the studio. Then I walk past it, the way a passer-by would, and notice what I actually take in. If I have to stop and read, the poster is doing too much.

The detail still matters up close. Dates, venue and small print need to be easy to find for the people who do stop. But the first job is to make them stop, and one clear idea does that better than ten competing ones.