This document provides research on what makes an effective promotional poster. It begins by defining what a poster is and its common purposes. It then examines several example posters, analyzing aspects like use of imagery, layout, color scheme, and inclusion of key details. The document finds that good posters attract attention, clearly communicate information like the artist, album title and release date, and sometimes break conventions through unique designs. The examples help inform criteria for an effective promotional poster, such as an eye-catching graphic, block colors, and reviews or themes relating to the music.

1. Initial Research
What is a poster?
Internet findings
A poster is any piece of printed paper designed to be attached to a wall or vertical
surface.[1] Typically posters include both textual and graphic elements, although a poster
may be either wholly graphical or wholly text. Posters are designed to be both eye-
catching and informative. Posters may be used for many purposes. They are a frequent
tool of advertisers (particularly of events, musicians and films), propagandists, protestors
and other groups trying to communicate a message. Posters are also used for
reproductions of artwork, particularly famous works, and are generally low-cost
compared to original artwork.
Source - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poster
noun 1. a placard or bill posted or intended for posting in a public place, as for
advertising.
Source - http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/poster

2. What is the purpose of a poster?
Posters are typically attention-getting ways of giving information to a passer-by.
Posters use graphic and typographic elements to give information about something,
usually with the goal to increase a passer-by's knowledge of the poster's subject.
For example, it's often easy to tell if a movie is an action movie or a comedy or a
horror, based on the imagery and the treatment of the letters in the title.
A poster of an event or product will often use varying sizes of type, pulling a person
in with something like "Free!" or "$100 prize!" or "Tonight only!" in larger letters,
with the smaller letters explaining more to someone who was captured by the larger
type.
source -
https://uk.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20100226093244AAyc42z
The main function of a poster is to capture a moving audience with a message.
When designing a poster, plan its design carefully. You will have a short amount of
time to attract and hold your readers attention. Think about the one aspect of the
information that must convey the message and plan your design around that
http://www.cis.rit.edu/htbooks/dtp/projects/poster/poster1.html

3. What does a typical poster look like?

4. What makes a good promotional poster?
Image of artist(s)
Name of the album
Colour scheme matching the album
Name of artist(s)
Interesting
composition
LayoutFormat
Attention grabbing
Correct colouring
Break the rules
Promotional Poster Research
We decided to do some research into the development of our promotional poster for our
album. We first started by creating a brainstorm of things that we think make a good poster.
We made the things bold that we think are most important.
We also looked at some website pages with information on them about how to
make a good poster.
1. http://elbowroomdesign.com/musings/610/how-to-design-a-good-poster/
2. http://designobserver.com/feature/what-makes-a-good-poster/4917

5. The first poster that we looked at was the
one to the right, ‘Lungs’ by Florence and
The Machine. We started off with this
poster due to the fact that this is the
artist of the song that we chose to make
our music video for. The first thing that
we noticed about this was the fact that
the title of the album is printed in large
letters in order to get the audience’s
attention. The name of the artist is
clearly placed at the top of the page, this
helps promote the album in the sense
that the fans of the artist and their
previous albums will be influenced to buy
and listen to the album. We like the fact
that even though the poster has
interesting art on the front which keeps
the eye entertained, it is very informative
and gives clear information including the
date of the albums release, some of the
singles included, the website and the fact
that the album can be
downloaded/bought on many different
forms of media.

6. We decided to look at this promo poster
advertising the indie band Kasabian. We thought
the fact that it is for an indie artist would help us
get ideas for our own genre of music as there
tends to be a general style for the overall genre.
We particularly like the way that this poster
breaks the general conventions of pop posters
due to the fact that it does not have an image of
the artist on the front, it has a simple illustration
portraying what seems to be a partial face. We
like the simple fact that the audience has
difficulty figuring out what the graphic is due to
the fact that this would keep peoples interest for
longer and in turn make them look at the
information on the poster, therefore resulting in
more sales and downloads. Again, this poster
has the name of the artist/album and portrays
information about the album. What we didn’t
like about this poster is the fact that there is no
date of release shown. However we liked the
block colours, black and white used as we think
it creates an interesting effect on the eye.

7. The thing we found
interesting about this
poster is the
composition. We like
how the poster has
been designed
horizontally rather
than vertically, defying
the usual conventions
of a promotional
poster and breaking
the boundaries. This is
something that we
hope to take on board
When creating our poster. Something else we liked was the way the poster has reviews of
popular magazines on the front, both giving the album 5 stars. This is also something that we
hope to take on board. Again, this poster has the date of release, album name and artist
name in order to appel to the target audience and give the relevant information needed.

8. We found the layout of this poster
interesting due to the fact that the
human face has been mixed with the
face of an owl, then split up into four
sections. We thought that something
along these lines would be interesting
to try and recreate due to the fact that
an owl is a trending theme in our video.
We liked the ‘night vision’ style filter
place on top of the image as it gives a
nocturnal feel to the poster which ties
into the theme of the owl. We also liked
the neon typewriter text as it ads a pop
of colour to the dark poster.

9. We chose to look at this poster as we
thought it tied in with our woodland
inspired theme because of the tree
animation. We like the way that the
image inside of the tree is hard to work
out, but upon close observation you can
see it is a rose. The rose also ties in with
our theme as we used burning roses
throughout our music video. We like the
way that the poster is mainly all blue,
apart from the white writing and the
coloured tree. This puts across
information easily without distracting the
audience.