Christopher Enberg's List: GD63 Final Project: Poster Design Inspiration by Christopher Enberg

Psdtuts+ is an incredible resource to inspire and guide in developing awesome images for designing a poster. It covers many tutorials on light and texture. These tutorials help bring an edge to your design, inspire new directions and they are really easy to follow. I have chosen this site as one of my highest quality sites because these tutorials are clearly put together with the designer in mind and regarding my topic, this site has been an amazing inspiration with poster design for me.

Elements make or break a poster. iStockphoto is a really good resource for free elements such as Vector graphics, photos etc. Which is really important for someone who is not an illustrator or photographer. The site is well organized and easy to navigate. This is why I have chosen it as one of my highest quality sites. Best of all it is free. Which is important When you are trying to stay within a budget for a project.

If a poster can't say the right thing, it isnt speaking at all. Next to imagry, typography is a key factor in getting a message across. The right font helps that success. Using the wrong font can also silence your message. Take comic sans for example. It has been pointed out so many times it could be used as a ironic joke, but it is true, it is a terrible font that takes away anything legit about your poster. Font Squirrel is a free site for fonts that are clean and perfect for just about any design. I have chosen this site as one of my highest quality sites because it offers fonts for everything and it is easy to navigate and use. It is a must have for finding the right font for the direction you are taking a project.

This article goes over guidelines for creating an effective poster. They are excellent surefire guidelines that are worth revisiting. Laying out the rules of engagement it talks about the proper use of colour, proper fonts, simplicity and making an impact. Even more important, breaking the rules. I once learned about art that you can only break the rules when you understand them.Very true and excellent advice.

This article goes over a very important part of poster design. The printing stage! It is also the best part. Nothing feels better than having your design in print, in your hands. The texture of the paper, the smell of the ink, the joy of admiring your clean lines and color separations. This article talks about the procedure and discussions that go into getting your print done right.

Aside from minor trolling this is a great forum on concert poster design and appreciation. There isn't much in the way of inspiration, but it is certainly a good place to talk about gig posters. It boasts the following numbers Posters: 146237 | Bands: 128653 | Designers: 11011 and also has discussion boards for designers in particular to talk about technique.

When it comes to inspiration this blog is tops! Put together by Shaun Homsapaya, flyergoodness is everything that is good with flyers, posters and everything print. I really like the way this site dives into all forms of print and captures many inspirations. As a grand, growing collection builds this site has become an endless source of inspiration.
The blog is called Flyergoodness and fetures these three nice examples.
1. http://flyergoodness.blogspot.com/2010/02/david-klein.html
2. http://flyergoodness.blogspot.com/2009/10/aesthetic-apparatus-dead-weather-tour.html
3. http://flyergoodness.blogspot.com/2011/02/stylish-lettering-typography-by-like.html

When creating posters, it is important to make sure the size is flexible. That also means making sure your art work is vector if possible. This site is a quick way to vector images without opening InDesign. It does a decent job too. If I am searching for royalty free graphics to use on posters or advertisements, I want to have flexibility in size and the only way to do that is to insure my graphics are vectorized. When searching for graphics online, it seems like an online tool would make the search and conversion process convenient.

I used sachagreif.com/drse/ which is a design resource search engine built around google searches. It is a bit of a work in progress but it is pretty efficient and helpful in searching for inspiration and finding resources for poster design. Searches i enlisted included "poster design" inspiration, "poster design" tutorials, "poster design" typography, "poster design" articles.

This is a fantastic site to look through movie posters for inspiration. You can see anything from rare posters, vintage, classic and current. They also have music posters and other poster prints. You can even buy them for a price, but I think they are just fine to browse through.

I found this fun site that, as a designer, you can compete for gigs business and people are putting out there. I find I am at my best when I am competitive and putting myself against others who are more experienced and better than I am, in an attempt to earn a freelance gig is not only great practice, but is also a fun way to compete and challenge myself against others. This is a great means of inspiration for me. You also get to see what work others are submitting which can also inspire.