Help With ~ Large Format Posters

Before even opening PowerPoint, you need to do some thinking about what you are creating. Refer back to the visual literacy power point. "Who is my audience?", "What is my poster about?", "How can I get my idea across?". These are questions you need to ask yourself. A good place to start is the attached Visual Literacy Worksheet. Once you've done that, create a rough sketch of how you think you want your poster to look.

Visual Literacy Worksheet

Name:
Topic:

In column #1 write down adjectives (descriptive words/phrases) that comes to mind when you think of your topics and the feelings/ideas that you would like your audience to take away from interacting with your project. Then write down images and colors in columns 2 & 3 that support those ideas.

    1. Descriptive Words                 2. Imagery                         3. Color

Notes:


Keep this worksheet and refer back to it while you are working on your project. As you make decisions about the design make sure those choices are reflecting the ideas above and effectively communicating those ideas to the audience.

Once you have written down your ideas and have a rough sketch, you can start putting your poster together. Using PowerPoint, create a background, add text and images, and construct your layout. You will find that with everything planned out it's much easier to go ahead and make the poster. Here are a number of resources to help you with the creation phase.

Hamilton LITS Resource Center

Creating a Large Format Poster in PowerPoint 11

Finding Color Themes

Adobe Kuler - Locate a number of already created color themes or create your own.

Color in Motion - Learn about colors and the meaning behind them through fun and interactive videos.

Finding Images

Creative Commons - A great search engine for finding copyright free images.

Finding Fonts

dafont.com - Thousands of fonts, free to download.

When you've finished a poster, it's important that you reflect on and evaluate what you created. This is why drafts are important. Nobody gets things perfect the first time, and by creating a draft, you can receive feedback from others and make further improvements to your poster. This ultimately leads to a better final product.

In order to print a poster at the library, save it as a PDF. Then request an appointment for proofing and/or printing your poster from this online form.