Reflections Printing

Now let’s talk a little about contrast. Flyers, and posters are especially designed to catch your eye from a distance.  They are usually posted up in a window or on a bulletin board.  Someone is walking by, they glance at it for only a fraction of a second, if we have done our graphic design job well, what they see will interest them and then they will come for a closer look.  The more contrast you have between your text and graphics and your background, the better your chances of capturing their interest.

Your best contrast is going to be black on white or white on black, of course.  Let’s take another look at our “scary” poster.  I wanted the all text at the top to be readable from as far away as possible, so I made the very top text white, but I wanted the “Horrors” to be in red.  Instead of just using red by itself and losing some of my contrast, I put a white outline behind the red which makes it “pop,” or gives it extra contrast, (see the example below on the left.) Notice, I did not try to make the whole poster readable from a distance, I am putting my money on the word “Horrors” as a hook to pull someone over to find out more, that is where the emphasis is.  The rest of the text is smaller because I want “Horrors” to be like a magnet for the eye – I don’t want the rest of my text to compete with it.

A tip for photocopying – I see a fair amount of flyers which have been photocopied black on red paper.  While red is a good color to stand out, it doesn’t give you very good contrast with black.  Try using a bright pink or other lighter fluorescent color instead – that will work better.

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