4 Expert Tips for Poster Design and Printing in Toronto

Posters remain a ubiquitous form of both advertising and artwork because they can convey both images and messages in creative ways.

They can be used to promote everything from movies and books to brands and political parties. They can also adorn teenage bedroom walls with images of their favourite pop stars or hang framed in your living room to display a reproduction of a beloved classical painting.

To that end, Micro Printing presents this simple guide to poster printing and design for Toronto businesses and residents.

4 Useful Tips for Poster Designing and Printing in Toronto

Making a poster involves two main steps: designing it and printing it. Here are the key steps to getting the best of both:

1. The Purpose: Your poster’s layout will be based on its purpose. For instance, a decorative poster is generally more colourful and has more images than one that acts as an advertisement. Promotional posters for businesses, movies, or political campaigns need to be informative and, therefore, tend to have more text. A good political poster, for instance, may have a short and easy-to-remember slogan and the party’s logo.

2. The Rough Composition: Important things to consider when making your first design draft include fonts and font sizes, image placement, and headlines.

   Advertising and political posters are usually simple. The headline’s font size is the largest, and the rest of the text decreases in size as it decreases in importance. The images should be clean and easy to see. Adding a call to action will encourage your target audience to look further into your organization or subject.

   Decorative posters are usually bright, colourful, and visually engaging. There is no need to include words at all. Multiple images can portray the underlying message. However, a decorative poster might only have a landscape, a single subject, or a famous proverb.

   Note that Micro Printing offers poster design services, so feel free to ask us to take care of this important stage of your poster’s development.

3. The Colour Palette: Unless your aim is to create a black-and-white poster for cost-efficiency, simplicity, or as a message, choosing the right colours for your poster is essential. This is because a bright and colourful poster will attract more attention and help make an impression on your audience.

   Ideally, you should choose only three main colours: the primary, the secondary, and the accent. Using too many can overwhelm your audience. The primary colour will highlight the most important parts of the poster. You can use the secondary colour to create a contrast with the primary one, and the accent colour adds creative touches.

   Contrasting these three colours is also important. Any text or images should be darker on a light background. Similarly, try using a simple and plain background colour so the audience does not miss the message of the poster.

4. The Printing Process: As a premium printing service in Toronto, this is how Micro Printing creates your perfect printed poster:

   • Instead of the RGB (Red, Blue, and Green) colour mode, we choose CMYK (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow, and Black) for poster printing. This will improve your colour accuracy and help match the colours on the final print with your design.
   • Poster printing needs a resolution of about 300 dots per inch (DPI) to ensure clear, high-quality prints. Choosing a lower resolution would make your picture unclear and hazy, especially if printed in larger dimensions.
   • When it comes to creating posters, it is important to know the standard dimensions. Typically, posters are available in three sizes: 11” x 17”, 18” x 24”, and 24” x 36”. These sizes are widely used in various settings, from advertising events to decorating homes or offices.
   • The bleed is the part of the background colour of the poster that extends beyond the trim. We set the bleed so your poster is not printed with a white border.
   • There are several types of paper available for poster printing. Glossy paper is shiny and best for decorative posters. Matte paper has a non-shiny finish and is best for printing posters with more text. Satin paper has a balance of gloss and matte. Finally, waterproof and tear-resistant vinyl paper is good for printing outdoor posters. Thus, it is important to choose the right paper for your posters.

 
To achieve a flawless result, leading poster printing companies in the Toronto area, like Micro Printing, ensure all these steps are taken properly. These include design, colour choice, and proper printing set-up. With this simple guide and help from Micro Printing’s expert staff, you can better understand how posters are printed from start to finish.