How do you make a good, yet cheap poster/flyer?

[ric1312]

How do you make a good, yet cheap poster/flyer?

Went to post fliers at a rock club. I noticed that even the unkwown acts now all have really nice posters/flyers. I don't mean so much the artwork but the printing and quality of the print. I can do good artwork on my computer. Ours were just printed off our home computer with an inkjet printer on 8x11. So looked like crap compared to the other bands posters that were printed out on larger paper and better quality.

Where do you get a good posters done for shows that doesn't break the bank? Specific details please.

[j.a.e.r.i.p]

for my shows, i make a design and send it to my dad at his work and copy it 11x17, looks very good. obviously you probably don't have as good a situation for that but find a copy machine you have access to that can make 11x17 prints.

[jady]

Try Serif PagePlus SE

it is a free alternative to MS Publisher.

I made this flyer in about 5 minutes

[Spoiled Grape]

Originally Posted by ric1312

How do you make a good, yet cheap poster/flyer?

Went to post fliers at a rock club. I noticed that even the unkwown acts now all have really nice posters/flyers. I don't mean so much the artwork but the printing and quality of the print. I can do good artwork on my computer. Ours were just printed off our home computer with an inkjet printer on 8x11. So looked like crap compared to the other bands posters that were printed out on larger paper and better quality.

Where do you get a good posters done for shows that doesn't break the bank? Specific details please.

What rock club was it? Most "unknown" acts that are touring have a booking agent/manager that does this for them. We do.

[topper]

I send mine to Kinkos. I make them in Photoshop, save as a PDF. Then send them online to Kinkos. Their 11x17 color prints on regular paper look pretty good and I think they're about a $1 a poster.

[butchblack]

Originally Posted by ric1312

How do you make a good, yet cheap poster/flyer?

Went to post fliers at a rock club. I noticed that even the unknown acts now all have really nice posters/flyers. I don't mean so much the artwork but the printing and quality of the print. I can do good artwork on my computer. Ours were just printed off our home computer with an inkjet printer on 8x11. So looked like crap compared to the other bands posters that were printed out on larger paper and better quality.

Where do you get a good posters done for shows that doesn't break the bank? Specific details please.

If you do this often consider buying one of the Epson printers that will do 13" paper. Use good quality photo paper and print to the paper's profile. You can use one of the dye based ink printers as opposed to a pigment based ink printer if you don't need long term display.

If you only do this infrequently you can do your artwork save it as a flattened JPEG in sRGB color space and take it to your local mini lab or print shop. Depending on the type of printer the mini lab has they will be able to do 10x15's or 12x18's. Print shops may be able to do much larger posters. This option works best if you only need 1 copy of the poster. If you need a lot of smaller 8.5X11's then look for deals on color copies. They won't look as good as a photo poster from a lab or print shop but at around 50¢-75¢ a copy they won't break the bank either.

[last minute]

I use Photoshop Elements 6 ($89 at costco). I designed the poster with a large oval white space to write the date on with marker. We printed and laminated colour copies for inside bars (they can use an eraseable marker and re-use) and b&w ones for outside as they are dirt cheap. Printed them at Staples probably could have been a bit cheaper had I shopped around.

[lunarpollen]

There are lots of small businesses offering services like what you seek. Often they advertise in Craigslist and places like that. They sometimes have really good deals for printing event flyers on nice glossy cardstock in standard sizes, as well as larger posters. You submit the artwork file to them in a format they specify, and they do the setup and printing and will often ship you a package with your flyers with a very quick turnaround (or if they are local you can just pick up the job when it's done)

[nsmar4211]

Inkjet printers are gonna look like crap unless you use really good paper, and by the time you figure your ink costs and paper costs and aggravation costs you arent saving anything. Not to mention the least bit of moisture and it'll run/bleed/feather.
I manage a copy center in a box store..... bring your local box store a CD with (preferably) a pdf file, or a good quality jpg, and have em printed off the cd. My store charges $1.79 for 11x17 color prints (up to 50, after that it goes down like .10 each extra 50 you do) on 24lb paper. Glossy heavier paper is $1.99 each. If you wanna laminate em , it's $2.00 more.
I made up a bunch for a friends band at work, I just took their band pic into Microsoft publisher, slapped a text box with the band name over top it, slapped a white box so they could write in the venue/date/time at the bottom, saved it as a .jpg, printed out some in color and laminated for the permanent places and printed some in b/w for the tear down ones. Black and white copies 11x17 are like .26 each....
Now, if you're doing 500 or 1,000 or more, it'd be cheaper to go shopping around to local printers that can do them on magazine type paper etc etc. If you're doing like 25 or 50, hit the box stores. Around here, Kinko's is actually the highest in pricing, Staples is the lowest. Office Depot and Office Max run specials to compete with Staples, but they're never lower in price...
You also want to print the black and white ones off the cd, it'll come out better than copying the color print. If you don't have a cd file, and want to copy it off a print out, pay the extra two or three cents and have it done behind the counter, the self service machines are not as high quality. You may have to drop em off and come back later so don't wait till 1 hr before your show LOL.
Remember though......garbage in, garbage out....you copy a bad looking original quality wise you're gonna get a bad looking copy.

Oh, and when printing black and white, keep in mind that dark tones (reds, dark greens, dark blues) will copy black. Red writing on a black background will copy as a nice black box and there's *nothing* you can do on a copier to make it look good. Most programs have a print preview, preview it greyscale before having it printed . And if anyone in the band has dark skin tones, in black and white they may turn into nothing but eyeballs on a shadow (teeth too if they're smiling). I've seen some nice Cheshire cat looking Reggae bands in black and white... obviously I talked em into doing color .

[scottmabe]

My God we have come along way !!
I remember when we would draw them on copy paper and Sharpies I stole from work !! Reading the posts , I think I really need to buy a new printer !!

[baba]

Originally Posted by topper

I send mine to Kinkos. I make them in Photoshop, save as a PDF. Then send them online to Kinkos. Their 11x17 color prints on regular paper look pretty good and I think they're about a $1 a poster.

This is exactly what we do. Very convenient.

[ric1312]

Originally Posted by baba

This is exactly what we do. Very convenient.

In photoshop do you have to make them the size you want to print? Or will they get resized at Kinkos without the graphics getting all messed up?

[baba]

Originally Posted by ric1312

In photoshop do you have to make them the size you want to print? Or will they get resized at Kinkos without the graphics getting all messed up?

Yes, you should resize them before you send. Kinko's might do it if you ask and/or for a fee, but if they start tweaking an already compressed jpg file you are likely going to lose resolution and start pixelating out.

[bigfatbass]

Make you image file at least 300dpi at the size you want it to print.

A good way to class up a black and white poster on the cheap is to choose a colored stock. Many of the self serve/kinos type places will give you the colored stock to load yourself for the same price as plain white.

We had one batch printed on fake, antiqued, parchment/resume stock. Looked great and only cost a few extra sense a copy.

UPS stores often have color copy sales for as low as .39 cents a sheet for 8.5"x11"

[nsmar4211]

In photoshop, set your page size to 8x11 and design it from there. Save it as a JPG, keep the file size under 5 or 6mb. 300 DPI is plenty. I'm not sure if Kinko's has to print it as a PDF or if they can print jpg's directly, I know we can print either. I also know that when it's converted to a pdf from a jpg you can lose some quality and it'll add more white to it.

Keep in mind that when copying you won't get a full bleed (color won't touch the edges). Keep your copy (text, pictures) at least 1/4" away from the edges so nothing gets cut off on the copy. If you are doing black and white, large areas of black are absolute murder on copy machines-not recommended to use your office or home copier to make those .
And +1 to using colored paper-my company charges the same as white for any pastel/bright papers. Some of the bright papers will make your eyes fall out and are hard to read... best colors are goldenrod, canary, light green, bright yellow, bright orange, light bright green, and cream. Don't bother with red , dark blue, purple, or dark green papers-really hard to read and *impossible* to photocopy off of if you have to make emergency copies. The parchment papers run around .16 a page to start with here.

If you design something, you can PM me and send it to me and I can tell you if it'll copy good black and white (I do this for a living ).

Personally, I just use Publisher to design stuff and then do "save as" to save it as a jpg. Doesn't hog as much computer memory as photoshop and much faster to work with .

[butchblack]

Originally Posted by nsmar4211

In photoshop, set your page size to 8x11 and design it from there. Save it as a JPEG, keep the file size under 5 or 6mb. 300 DPI is plenty. I'm not sure if Kinko's has to print it as a PDF or if they can print jpg's directly, I know we can print either. I also know that when it's converted to a PDF from a JPEG you can lose some quality and it'll add more white to it.

Keep in mind that when copying you won't get a full bleed (color won't touch the edges). Keep your copy (text, pictures) at least 1/4" away from the edges so nothing gets cut off on the copy. If you are doing black and white, large areas of black are absolute murder on copy machines-not recommended to use your office or home copier to make those .
And +1 to using colored paper-my company charges the same as white for any pastel/bright papers. Some of the bright papers will make your eyes fall out and are hard to read... best colors are goldenrod, canary, light green, bright yellow, bright orange, light bright green, and cream. Don't bother with red , dark blue, purple, or dark green papers-really hard to read and *impossible* to photocopy off of if you have to make emergency copies. The parchment papers run around .16 a page to start with here.

If you design something, you can PM me and send it to me and I can tell you if it'll copy good black and white (I do this for a living ).

Personally, I just use Publisher to design stuff and then do "save as" to save it as a JPEG. Doesn't hog as much computer memory as photoshop and much faster to work with .

A simple Photoshop trick to make it easier to make sure you have adequate margins

Design your flyer at 300 PPI for whatever size your going to print out. When finished and flattened go to edit, image size downsize it an inch both height and width with the re-sample button OFF, note the new PPI. Then hit file, new. When the dialog box comes up make a new document the original paper size at the new PPI, transparent. Use the move tool to place the original image on there. Hold the shift button while moving the image and it will be centered on the new document. Flatten, rename and you're all set. If you're doing color make sure you've saved it in sRGB color space and that you did your final color adjustments in that space.

Hope that helps

[MoD_Scotty]

GO HERE: www.clubflyers.com

[baba]

If you need artwork, and you like what you see here, drop me a PM. http://picasaweb.google.com/seanbeier/SeanSArtwork