Posters
Text should be clear and concise. Use a contrast of fonts and typestyles (bold, italics, etc.) to draw the eye. Graphics and cartoons are great too, but don’t crowd it too much – you need some white space. Show it to someone clueless and see if they get it. If they don’t, make it simpler.

Poster Tips:

• The lettering needs to solid enough to be readable from 10-20 feet away. You might want to black it in with a marker by hand—hand-done posters can be catchier.
• Funky colors are good eye-catcher, but aren’t that great for the environment. Recycled paper increases your credibility and solid black on unbleached cream color can stand out well.
• If you do a series of lectures, they need individual posters and don’t make them in the same style—at a glance, people will think they saw them already.
• For letter or phone campaigns, you could make a poster cut into strips at the bottom that people can tear off and take home (like a “for rent” poster) giving the phone number or address and what to say. This worked for us on the Clean Air Act – at least a lot of them were torn off!
• Make a poster that can be used throughout the semester to advertise your weekly meetings.
• Be creative about where you post—insides of bathroom stalls, garbage cans, “alternative” hangouts, etc. Be inclusive too. Don’t ignore an area because you think no one would be interested.
• Just handing posters out at a meeting and asking people to put them up doesn’t work very well. Assign people to specific buildings or areas of town, and tell them when it needs to go up. As usual, the more specific the task, the more likely it will get done.
• People should carry about extras to replace those torn down.
• It is especially important for posters to be up the day of the event (especially for things like rallies), so you might consider doing a second round beforehand.
• If your posters are always torn down you might want to wheatpaste them. Mix: wall paper glue, flour, and water. Apply it with a brush. Note this should only be done outside and you may risk arrest.
• Be sure to advertise your group as well as your event.
• ALWAYS have someone else proofread it.