Golfing Gets a Swing with Design

Golfing and design - who would have thought they would go together? Of course they do when you have a golfing tournament to advertise. That’s what the Enumclaw Chamber of Commerce needed for their 14^th Annual Golf Tournament.

A good event poster needs three elements.

1. Information
2. Visuals 
3. Easy to Read and Understand

Information

The most important information is letting people know what the event is all about. That would be the event name and in this case “14th Annual Golf Tournament” is the largest font on the page. The client wanted the Golf Tournament to be prominent, considering “14th Annual” a secondary consideration. This was done by using a different color and font size for “Golf Tournament”.

Date, time, location, and cost are the next pieces of information in priority. What to expect at the event, what participants get for the price of registration or ticket, discounts, sponsors, and who is putting on the event, is information often included on event posters. But the priority of information is dependent on the client.

Visuals

Visuals should capture the attention of the intended audience. In this case it would be people who enjoy golfing. Any number of images whether graphics, photos, clip art, or illustrations, can be used as long as the design doesn’t look cluttered and busy. They can be used to highlight information or direct the viewer to text, logos, and other images.

This was the third poster I created for this event. The first had a pastoral scene of a golfing green. The second included an image of the restaurant/clubhouse where the tournament would take place. Both had the sponsor prominently displayed within a golf ball.

This time I took a swing at their tag line “Get your swing on at the Enumclaw Golf Course.” There’s the golfer in mid swing and grinning at the viewer. It’s the largest image on the poster.

Easy to Read and Understand

People should be able to find information easily. I’ve seen some posters where I had to hunt for the date, time, and location. Sometimes, I’ve been hard pressed to find what the event is about.

Breaking up the text into bite size pieces rather containing most or all in a paragraph will encourage people to read the poster. Size of the font, placement of the text, the type of font used, and font color can all be used to draw the viewer’s eye to date, time, cost, etc. and make the poster easy to read.

Keeping these three elements in mind will help you create successful posters for your clients.

What does a Singing Group have to do with Graphic Design?

The singing group is a client and I'm the designer. Cascade Foothills Chorale just completed their spring concert and I have had the pleasure of designing their posters for the last two years.

Their concerts always have a theme and this spring it was “All-Occasions” for the all occasion cards that used to be advertised in the backs of magazines. Their concert featured songs for the various celebrations that happen throughout the year.

To capture the theme I selected images from Flickr Commons that invoked most of the prominent US celebrations throughout the year. I was more concerned about how everything fit together in a collage rather than a sequential layout. You can see New Years Day, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Easter, Flag Day, July 4^th (the American flag represents both), Halloween, Thanksgiving, Martin Luther King, Jr Day, and Christmas. 

All of it was created in Photoshop and I used a lot of masking to merge, combine, or overlap images. 

I thought a vintage look would be appropriate and selected Snell Roundhand for the font and added a dark orange shadow for the edge of the poster. 

Value versus Cost

Starting out in the graphic design field I offered my services for low cost or did pro bono work that is, admittedly, problematic.

You might think that it’s a win-win.

The Client is

• Getting professional design so their advertising looks better
• Gaining more attention
• Getting design at bargain prices

You are

• Building up your portfolio
• Getting visibility to get clients
• The organization will hire you for other projects
• The client will give referrals

Surprisingly it can be hard to get a gig offering low cost or pro bono work especially with non-profits. Typically they have someone who likes to be creative and are happy putting together clip art.

I did manage to convince one non-profit to use my services. The problem is that they saw the cost as the value of my work. We agreed I would be compensated by the cost of the events they were sponsoring. The cost ranged from S30 - $100 depending on the event. The value of what I was doing, the labor that was involved, of course, was a lot more. To them the value was $30 - $35. Their reaction to paying $100 was “I don’t know if I can get approval to pay that much for this.”

I have not been hired for other projects. When the company that produced their brochures went out of business they hired another graphic designer. It’s questionable as to whether I get referrals from them when they view the value of my work as the cost.

Three or four years later I’m asking myself if I have gotten any business from this. Are they referring anyone to my business for graphic design work when they perceive the value of it as being so low?

Not all non-profits have this attitude. There’s another non-profit that understands the value of what they are getting and is very appreciative.

I won’t say don’t ever offer your services for free or low cost. Sometimes it’s the only way to start out. But be aware that the client may confuse the cost with the value. Don’t let yourself get in a rut and if you are getting little or no benefit from the situation move on.  Also, try to move on graciously. It won’t benefit you if you leave the client with hard feelings.