affinity photo Opinions on this poster?

[LuccasGreco]

I am pretty new to Affinity Photos and design in general... I just wanted to get some opinions on this poster that I made, any tips or ideas that would be helpful! 

Thank you!

Sicily Poster Information.afphoto

[MEB]

Hi LuccasGreco,
Welcome to Affinity Forums
I've moved your thread to the Share your work section and this one is only for reporting bugs for Affinity Photo Beta.

[GarryP]

I have a few comments:
* It is normally good if you post an image of your work on the forum so people can see, more easily, what you have made rather than having to download and load a document. While all Affinity products can open afphoto files, there is a chance that other people don't have the fonts you have used and so might not be able to view the work properly.
* The photo at top-right has been stretched horizontally and, as such, doesn't look as nice as it could.
* The black border around the top text block is uneven.
* The distances of the rectangular parts of the design from the page border are uneven.
* Most of the text is in a strange almost-black grey which doesn't look right to me (could just be me).
* You have used the word "improve" and the phrase "looking to improve" a bit too much in the same short paragraph and it looks strange (but that may purely be down to language translation).

Have a look at my very quick rehash where:
* I've used borders on the two text blocks (rather than a rectangle-in-a-rectangle that you used at the top), much easier to maintain.
* I've made most of the text black, except where I've tried to emphasise some parts of it.
* I've made the distances from the page to the blocks the same all round.
* I've put the badge over the bay photo on a slight angle to give it a bit more "liveliness".
* I've given the bay photo a tiny bit of exposure adjustment to darken it a little.
* I've reformatted the body text so that the repeated "improve" sections are not as easy to spot.

I'm not saying that my version is much better or that it should be used as an example of best practice, and I'm sure there are other changes that could be made. I provide it merely as an example of how a few minor changes can make a big difference to the overall impression of a design.

I've attached a "before and after" image (my version on the right).

I hope I've been able to give you a few tips and given you some things to think about.

 

Edited January 8, 2019 by GarryP
Removed superfluous afdesign file.

[GarryP]

I had a bit more play around with the poster and came up another version, but not adding any extra fonts or images and only very slight text changes.
Changes made:
* Removed the boxes to bring all elements into the same area.
* Some minor text size, text colour and shadow changes to the badge.
* Removed the "Visit:" text (pretty much everyone knows what to do with a URL these days don't they?) and moved the URL to the bottom of the page (where other things like social media icons - or whatever - could also be put).
* Used basic transparency to merge the bay image with the background (slight colour change to that too).
* Added some plain black lines behind the artist images - same width as page border - to break up the blank space (not too sure about these).

Mostly minor edits - and not much time taken - but it's another way of looking at the same thing.
Again, it's not perfect or anything, but I just thought I'd try something else while keeping most of your original layers.

[LuccasGreco]

Wow, thank you so much! I really appreciate the tips. would you mind posting the document for the second design you made?

[LuccasGreco]

57 minutes ago, GarryP said:

I had a bit more play around with the poster and came up another version, but not adding any extra fonts or images and only very slight text changes.
Changes made:
* Removed the boxes to bring all elements into the same area.
* Some minor text size, text colour and shadow changes to the badge.
* Removed the "Visit:" text (pretty much everyone knows what to do with a URL these days don't they?) and moved the URL to the bottom of the page (where other things like social media icons - or whatever - could also be put).
* Used basic transparency to merge the bay image with the background (slight colour change to that too).
* Added some plain black lines behind the artist images - same width as page border - to break up the blank space (not too sure about these).

Mostly minor edits - and not much time taken - but it's another way of looking at the same thing.
Again, it's not perfect or anything, but I just thought I'd try something else while keeping most of your original layers.

I really like the idea of putting the website on the bottom... looks awesome 

[GarryP]

No problem; I've attached the afdesign file (and removed the previous one).
I was just playing around with this so some of the 'techniques' I used aren't best practice.

One other note, if you were to get this sort of thing professionally printed it might be better to:
* remove the black outline;
* add bleeds;
* expand the background items to go to the edge of the bleeds;
* and go for a full-page print rather than having the box there (which is only really useful for home printing).
I'm sure you can figure out how to do this yourself if necessary though.

Sicily Poster Information redux 2.afdesign

[Martin AS]

Garry did a lot of good stuff in reviewing the poster. A poster is to attract attention and promote more personal interest in the viewer. Add this to the fact in the internet age that a lot of people do not read the details. They glance and go...I suggest keeping it as visual as possible with as few words as possible. You have definitely got the main information there. Too often I have seen posters that forget the address, the date etc. They might put a date but forget the year.( Just noticed this is missing in this poster) Once you have a poster ready ( in your eyes) always have someone else review it for details.

Nice work and best of luck.

Edited January 9, 2019 by Martin AS
added note about year