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.