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If you're good with colors, please help!


HumblyLearning

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Guys, I could use your input. I created the attached poster for a sports ministry at church. I like my idea (taking my Bible verse and making it a double meaning), but what I am uncertain about are the colors. Because the design contains silhouettes, naturally I used black and white. However, can a black and white poster attract church members' attention on a bulletin board? I like simplicity, not sure about others. Can you please let me know if you would recommend that I color this poster in any other way? Feel free to color this and show me what you've done. Please, I really need your opinion. I have never done this before.
 

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MrToM

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This is just my initial thought, and it very much depends on the quality of the print, but if this is going outside on a board then it will soon fade....especially if it's in direct sunlight.

Even indoors it may be near a window or door and exposed to direct sunlight.

I'd therefore be inclined to keep it as dark as possible so that it lasts longer.

I don't know how long you intend to display this so the above may not be applicable, and you don't mention how big this 'poster' is, in which case I'd say keep as much contrast as you can....if its printed on 'White' paper then black is obviously the best contrast. Any 'dark' colour on a contrasting background is going to work best.....yellow for instance would not work very well at all......and, if its subject to fading, would become increasingly more difficult to read through time.

Those are just the first things that popped into my head.

Regards.
MrTom.
 

ALB68

Dear Departed Guru and PSG Staff Member
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Didn't we work on this poster before?
 

Tom Mann

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@MrTom - Personally, I would regard the issue of color stability to be of vastly less importance than other issues with this poster because the OP can simply have it printed somewhere that uses UV stable inks. If light fading was such a fundamental issue, we would all be seeing a lot of faded, grubby looking billboards on the side of our roads, and we certainly don't. In fact, if the OP prints it themself using a little home/office printer, even dye based inksets have improved their UV stability tremendously over the past 5 years, and, in addition, if they really are worried about this problem, they have the option of having a UV protective layer added, or simply buying a set of archival quality pigment based inks for their printer which would completely and immediately solve this problem.

To me, the concern about fading is a red herring that detracts from a much more important issue, the content and design of the poster.

As it stands, I consider the current design to be a classic example of the "Ransom Note" approach to graphic design (OP: Google this term and read the short Wikipedia article on this subject, also, look at the many examples of this available online). You are trying to put way, WAY too much information on the page, and, to make matters worse, you are using too many different fonts and type sizes. This reduces the eye-catching ability of the poster, and is a visual turn-off to people who might actually stop and try to read it. This is a very common error of people making their first attempts at graphic design. IMHO, adding a bunch of different colors to the mix will just make the visual clutter even worse.

My suggestion is that you open up this discussion to include suggestions for a re-design, and not just be limited to a discussion of adding color. Also, if you want to discuss the poster more generally, you should provide us with information on *exactly* what message you want to get across. For example, maybe you should design a poster to advertise your first actual event, and not such a general message. Maybe you should include photos of members of the congration (or others) doing sports that will be featured in your program ... maybe you should include attractive and welcoming photos of the leaders of this activity / service ... etc. etc.

I can say with good confidence that with a re-design you would attract more people than you would with the current design.

Just my $0.02,

Tom M
 
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ALB68

Dear Departed Guru and PSG Staff Member
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Yup.... I recall you did a vector version on it....

I think the issue at the time was fitting the text to path. I believe Mr Tom actually sorted it out in the end.
 

HumblyLearning

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Hello everyone! OP here.

Larry and Mr.Tom, yes, absolutely I remember you guys from working on this poster with me, teaching me how to do paths with an old Photoshop version. If you recall, my church leader wanted to make some changes so despite you vectorizing the poster, I couldn't use it and I made a sincere apology for wasting your time. I apologize to you again. You know how it is working in a team sometimes. It is SOO hard to finish a project because people keep coming back to you with things to "fix"!

That said, because we spent so much work on the paths, I won't change the text wrap and the silhouettes. I actually like that part the way it is. Thanks again for helping me with that. I will only consider changing the fonts and colors, not anything we did together.

Tom Mann, thank you so much for your critique. You know... I really like people who will actually tell me what they dislike about my work. Anyone can say what they like about my design, but those comments may not help me as much. I did google ransom note and I have an understanding of what it is. The examples I saw look exactly like how it sounds - random letters cut out ffrom a newspaper with different font and sizes, just like a ransom note. I will explain to you what the poster is for. We're NOT trying to make money or anything. It's just a poster put up in church on a bulletin board (which is INDOOR by the way, and far from the sun) introducing members to our health and wellness team so they know we exist. We don't have any specific events yet. Just like the poster says, it's to get people to stay tuned and keep checking the board for future events. It's REALLY informal. We don't have pictures of the congregation doing sports or anything like that. Hence, I would really like to keep my design as is. It's really NOT a big deal of a poster. And if it helps, people don't really need to read the Bible verse (But those who hope in the Lord...) too much. Almost everyone from church know the verse by heart. I put it there just to illustrate that there could be a double meaning to the verse... for sports. Are you with me? So with that in mind, do you still feel that different fonts would create legibility issues if they already know the Bible verse? If you still think that, go ahead and tell me and I will see how it looks after I change it. What do you suggest? One font for everything?

And what colors would you use? Is black and white okay? I naturally used black and white because these are silhouettes, but then again, if it's a poster about exercising, should we use vibrant colors? How would you color this if you have to keep the silhouettes in the poster? (And before you say, I wouldn't use silhouettes. I would re-design the whole thing, please? Just imagine if you have to keep the silhouettes?)
 
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Tom Mann

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Hi "Humbly" - Thank you very much for understanding that when I critique something or make suggestions, I truly am trying to give that person the benefit of my experience, and not in any way belittle them or demean their efforts. Also, thank you for clarifying the location, usage, intended audience, etc. for the poster.

For several reasons, you will probably regret that you asked for more suggestions from me, LOL.

First, there are vastly better graphic designers on this forum than me, and second, my visual sensibilities reflect my personality, and I am not known for being subtle. Even worse, my attempt at humor may be much too crude for the intended audience. However, in my defense, I will point out that I got the donkey joke idea from a commercial website that sells religious posters. Anyway, the attached image is my first draft attempt to quickly gain the attention of people as they are walking by the poster, and, and then, once we have them stopped in their tracks, succinctly tell them both in text and in the silhouette images what they should be expecting in terms of the content of the new program, who to contact for more info, etc. I think you should design a poster so that they remember it, talk about it as a whole, as well as have content that is simplified sufficiently so that it too will be easily remembered (eg, "Hey, I wonder if the church is really going to have some square dancing?", etc.).

You probably also won't like that I removed all of the (approximate) quotations from scripture. I felt that including them was *literally* "preaching to the choir" and would actually decrease the effectiveness of the poster. As you said, the audience for this poster probably knows these quotations cold, but what they don't know is (a) that there is going to be a new fitness program, (b) that there are going to be events that might interest them, (c) that the events will likely involve different sports / exercise activities, and (d) who to contact to find out more about the program, of if they could make suggestions or help out, so those were my priorities in terms of communicating information.

Anyway, hopefully one of the other regulars here on PSG who is better at graphic design than me will also post their ideas.

It's almost certainly too much "in your face", and as different from yours as one can possibly get, so just hit the delete key -- I won't be in the least offended. :)

Best regards,

Tom M

PS - BTW, if, by some strange chance, you actually are interested, don't forget that you can double click on the preview to download the full resolution version.
 

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