5 steps to create a custom poster
A custom poster can be an effective tool to promote an idea, business, or just a cool piece of art for your home, office, man cave, she-shed, etc. Below I walk through five steps to create your own custom poster.
Start with an idea
I don’t mean to abandon you so early in the journey but I really can’t help you here. This is something, someone, a passion that would like to feature in your poster.
I started with a song that I made up to sing to Julia, my daughter, pleading with her to stop crying. In the song, I made up a storyline that she and our dog were superheroes out to save the world. Thus the idea to turn their superhero stature into a movie and then a movie poster. To save me any more potential embarrassment, I’ll stop there.
Once you have an idea, proceed to step 2.
2. Develop the characters
As I have developed brands and logos for previous ventures I had identified a go to place for logo or design work. To develop the logo for this blog, I used 99 designs and paid “a pretty penny”. The experience was great but not sustainable for multiple ventures that were “pre-revenue”. This led me to Fiverr. and I will never look back. The experience was comparable and the prices were much more bearable.
While Fiver is cheaper, be careful about the freelancer that you hire because sometimes, you get what you pay for here. Study the reviews and the portfolio of previously completed work of those you are considering hiring for the job.
Sadly I had to learn this lesson the hard way. As I was working through the first iteration of the full poster composition (see step 5 below) I had to pause and re-open my search for a new freelancer.
Fiverr has a method by which you can request a refund if you feel the work of a freelancer was subpar. But I caution here to take a hard look at who is to blame for this subpar work…
Was it the freelancer’s inability to deliver related to their work ethic/skill set?
-or-
Your inability to communicate what you wanted?
If the later, I would recommend you either continue to refine the deliverable with the currently hired freelancer (depending on how many iterations that came with the offer) or just pay the individual for their services, your learning experience, and move on.
3. Develop Content - The message you want your poster to get across
Writing/developing a fully baked idea is difficult for some. Some people see the big picture, while for others the details come a bit easier. Don’t get hung up on getting your words exactly perfect the first time around. This will come in fits and starts.
Establish a framework or an outline of where you want to go. Get on paper what is in your head, on the tip of your tongue, and move on. First focus on getting that framework out from the start to the finish line. Seeing the journey visually laid out will help you fill in the blanks as your creative juices ebb and flow.
That said… After you fully bake your thoughts, carefully proofread this content. Your designer will not question what you have in the text. Additionally, if you have decided to hire a value designer (read as “on the cheap”) often English is a second language so they may not possess the skillset to review the content, anyways.
For example, in one of my previous projects, I was attempting to have the point or “crown” on Moose’s head be more defined and ended up with a literal crown on his head. While unrelated I failed to do this step and had to pay for an extra set of revisions after the project was done. Potentially, get a separate set of eyes to look over your text.
4. Find inspiration for the poster design
This is the fun part or at least it was for my superhero based poster. I got to channel the spirit of my inner 6 year old. I searched the web for movie posters and cartoon covers to serve as inspiration to bring my idea to life. Again, you aren’t looking for perfection here. You attempting to gather a wide range of ideas to help solidify the essence of your idea.
Save one for the font treatment, another for the background, one for the way the characters are positioned. You may not even know why you like one example or the other.
These screenshots in combination with a few comments about each of them should be enough when provided to your designer to get your first draft created.
5. Hire a freelancer to bring your poster to life
In this step, you will again head back to Fiverr to hire a skillset that you personally do not possess or you lack the time to invest in the project.
As mentioned above, I had to learn a lesson the hard way in this step, that you get what you pay for. I found a designer that was willing to do five iterations of a poster for $25. I reviewed this designer’s portfolio and thought I could provide specific enough examples and feedback to achieve a quality end product.
It turned out, I was wrong. After several rounds of feedback, and providing specific examples, the work product was still poor and I decided to reopen my search for another designer. In retrospect, when reevaluating the portfolio, the first time around I was seeing what I wanted to see. I was picking out the best across several projects in the work they had completed. After re-examining, individually, none of the posters were that great.
After you find someone to jive with well enough to produce a decent enough product after the first few rounds of feedback, go with it! The name game here is iteration and incremental improvement. Find improvements/changes, start picking out what you do/ don’t like, use the examples from #3 to say “more like this” or “less of that”. You may have to go and find more examples from the web.
The key here is patience. This designer cannot read your mind. With patience, you can have loads of fun bringing to life custom works of art. I may have had a little too much fun as these projects line a wall in my office.
