A stunning poster can increase registrations for your event. That’s why creating a strong event poster design needs to be your marketing team’s focus.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to create a poster for a business, marketing, concert, or charity event. We also have a number of free event poster templates that you can customize.
Instead of hiring designers to create designs, non-designers can use Venngage’s Poster Maker to produce effective event poster designs quickly.
Click to jump ahead:
- What is an event poster?
- What are the benefits of using posters for your events?
- What are the elements of an event poster?
- What makes a good event poster design?
- How do you create event posters from scratch?
- How much does it cost to hire a designer for posters?
What is an event poster?
An event poster is a marketing tool designed to attract visitors to an upcoming conference or gathering. With the right design elements, a poster can increase how many guests attend your event.
Depending on the type of event and your target market, your design can focus on images, or be more text-heavy.
For example, this event template makes the best of both worlds by using an image as the poster background with text in the foreground.
While you can create a poster from scratch, most businesses use event poster templates that already have some content that can be customized.
Related:
- 55+ Creative Poster Ideas, Templates & Design Tips
- 12 Types of Posters for Every Business Need [Templates Included]
What are the benefits of using posters for your events?
There are many advantages to using posters to market an upcoming event, which we will outline below. Remember that a poster should be only one part of your event marketing campaign, alongside social media posts, email blasts, and blog posts.
Event posters are cost-efficient
One of the main reasons event posters have become a staple in marketing is their affordability. Even an ambitious design, like the one below, can be designed and printed without hurting the budget. It’s a far better option than placing an advertisement on TV or radio.
With the Venngage poster maker, you can choose a similar event poster template and customize it for your event. Add your own photos, change the text, and distribute the poster online for free.
You can download and print your completed poster with a Venngage for business account. Download options include PNG, PNG HD, PDF, Interactive PDF, and even in HTML to share via email.
Increased visibility
When your logo, brand colors, and fonts appear on your poster, you immediately create brand recall. This encourages potential attendees to engage with your event campaign.
Event poster templates, like the one below, use design principles to attract customers to your event.
The colors are eye-catching but you should remember to keep them consistent with your company’s branding.
To make your poster appealing, add more design elements, like icons and images. In which case, you may want to decrease the text so there is enough white space around your graphic elements.
Easily add branding to your designs with Venngage’s My Brand Kit and Autobrand features. Add your website and the editor will automatically import your logo, color scheme, and fonts into the design. All with just one click!
What are the elements of an event poster?
There’s more than adding high-quality photos and event details to an event poster. Consider the following details when you browse our poster templates library.
Typography
Typography is the font style and size that you will use for your posters. Some might think that it plays a small role in the design. In reality, the typography alone can influence your audience to take a look at your poster.
Choose a font style that is readable even from afar, as might happen with printed designs. While handwritten fonts can be tempting to use, these can affect readability.
We suggest using two to three typefaces. Having more would make your design look cluttered. Here’s a good example of a creative poster that can be shared on social media and offline.
This job expo poster looks highly professional and any job hunter would be interested in going to the event.
For this particular design, only one font style was used but with different sizes and colors. That’s also a good technique for a cleaner finish.
Related: 17 Essential Human Resources Poster Templates (Updated)
Layout
Another important aspect when creating poster designs is the layout. You can either use symmetric or asymmetric designs.
Symmetric designs keep all elements aligned equally on both sides of the vertical axis. An asymmetric design has unequal alignment and could be more visually enticing. Here’s an example of a creative asymmetrical design.
If you will take a closer look at this poster template, the designer intentionally created an imbalanced layout to add character to the design and break the monotony. We encourage you to use the same if your poster is dominated by text.
Related: How to Apply the Right Layout To Your Poster
Color
When choosing colors for your poster, you can take various approaches. Most businesses and organizations use their branding colors to increase company visibility.
For some, using color psychology does the trick to influence your audience’s perception. This is exactly what you can see from the poster template below.
The use of a variety of striking colors gives the poster an artsy vibe. You can use the same if you’re making designs for music or movie festivals.
In the Venngage editor, you can adjust the colors with a single click. Simply pick the color of your choice from the color-picker and apply it to your designs. You can also adjust the colors of some icons.
Visual Hierarchy
Another important element in event poster design is visual hierarchy. This will help direct viewers to the most important details about your event first, as demonstrated by poster templates like the example below.
The first thing you will see from this poster are the words ‘wash your hands.’ That’s the main point of this design. It wants to educate people about the importance of hand hygiene. And as your eyes naturally go down the poster, you get more information about this advocacy.
This style of poster is best if your design contains text that is longer than usual. If you wish to publish an informative poster, the example above is a good start.
Related: 10+ Research Poster Templates to Share Information Professionally
Shapes
Shapes can create a visual path for your audience to follow and they can also highlight specific elements. This example uses a circular shape not just to surprise audiences, but because it’s relevant to the event.
The circle in the middle gives off a mysterious vibe, making potential visitors more interested in joining the event.
Visual elements
Incorporate images and icons into your event poster design. You can use free stock photos but if you have unique brand images, those would be a better choice.
For visuals, freehand drawings are coming back in style. If you have a creative team, you might want to brainstorm about unique graphics to include in your event poster.
While some poster maker options online include a mix of free and premium images, Venngage’s library has over 4 million free stock photos for you to add to your poster templates. You also upload your own pictures with a business account.
What makes a good event poster design?
A good poster requires more than just a beautiful design. As marketers, your gauge of success is the response of your market to your poster.
If you want to take your poster design to the next level, here are a few things you need to consider:
- It should be readable from a distance
- It must include the most important information
- It needs to have stunning visuals, like icons and images
- It should include your company’s branding
- Follow current graphic design trends
How do you create event posters from scratch?
Creating a poster from scratch is not an easy feat. But this gives you the liberty to be more creative. If you plan to take this approach, you need to have some existing design skills or external resources.
There are design principles that are required to persuade your audience to save the date and attend your event.
Brainstorm with your team
When you have a creative idea for your poster design, you will want to get your team involved so you don’t miss any important facts.
Before you draft your design, collate your team’s suggestions and choose from the best ones. You can look at previous event poster templates and decide the most successful designs. Of course, do your research and see what works for your market.
Use Venngage’s real-time collaboration features to invite team members, add comments and share feedback instantly to design faster and more effectively.
Execute your design ideas
Once you have the content for your event poster, you and your team can start editing a template or create the design from scratch.
For non-professionals, it’s best to use poster templates. Use the template size as-is or enter custom dimensions for your content and you can have an effective poster in no time.
You can save a winning template, like the medical poster below, for future use.
Instead of a dull poster for your health care services, add playful icons to attract your audience. This is a great strategy for technical industries targeting the general market.
Review the final design elements
Before your poster goes lives, ask someone else to review it. When you’re too close to a design, you can gloss over some aspects. It’s best to ask your team members for their opinion.
You can then refine your design based on their feedback and increase the chances of drawing more attendees to make your event successful.
How much does it cost to hire a designer for posters?
The cost of hiring an event poster designer varies, depending on their expertise and years of experience. You certainly won’t get a designer to work for free.
Fees will also be dependent on the complexities of your request. According to a survey, hiring an event poster designer ranges between $100 and $850.
It is more cost-efficient to use a design platform like Venngage where the templates have been created by experts.
You can search for a design that suits your brand and use the template as inspiration to create your design.
Start designing an event poster that will attract more visitors
We’ve shown you how important an event poster can be. And you now have the tools to create a poster that will encourage audiences to attend your events.
Even if you don’t have design skills, you can use Venngage’s online poster maker and templates to design eye-catching posters that convert. Sign up for free and unlock more features with a business account.