\documentclass{article}
\author{Joseph Barillari \\ jbarilla@princeton.edu}
\title{On Postering Princeton}
\date{$ $Revision: 1.4 $ $ on $ $Date: 2002/01/02 06:37:19 $ $ GMT}
\begin{document}
\maketitle
\abstract{A brief discussion of the design and logistical issues involved in
on-campus poster advertising.}

%todo: add discussion of specific buildings, number of posters needed.

\subsection{Assumptions}
This document is intended to appeal to groups with the following
characteristics:
\begin{itemize}

\item Limited time, whether by approaching deadlines, approaching
events, or the general lack of time of all Princeton students.

\item Adequate, but not unlimited financing for advertising.

\end{itemize}

Groups with unlimited time or funds may find this guide useful, but it
was intended to maximize limited quantities of both, so it may not be
the best guide for you.

\subsection{Objectives}

Every postering campaign has a target audience and a message to
convey. In general campaigns, the target audience is the undergraduate
student body and the message is the time and place of an event. This
being an applied, rather than theoretical guide, the rest will focus
on that possibility, with the application to other left as an exercise
to the reader.

Given a target audience and a specific message, one now needs a poster
design and the locations in which it should be displayed.

\subsection{Design principles}

\subsubsection{Size}

Whenever possible, use $11 x 17$ (Tabloid) sized paper for your
posters. $8.5 x 14$ (Legal) has slight advantages over $8.5 x 11$
(Letter). If you must conduct a Letter-sized campaign, make up for
the small size with high coverage.

\subsubsection{Typography}

Unless you're advertising for a play or musical whose official title
uses one, never, \emph{ever}, use a script, handwriting, or other
novelty font. They're impossible to read and look
unprofessional. Never. Not even if you're advertising for a children's
play hour --- keep the Kids with Crayolas font where it belongs:
gathering dust in the Monotype catalog.

Select one large \textsf{sans-serif} font for the headlines and a
smaller serif font for the more detailed information. Try to limit it
to two fonts. I recommend Arial Black for the sans-serif and Times New
Roman for the serif, simply because most every campus computer has
them. Impact is also a good sans-serif font, but I've had some trouble
getting it to reproduce or print properly.\footnote{Make sure to
include a text version of your message if you submit it to a printer
electronically.  Then call them and make sure everything looks
right. If they don't know what it's supposed to look like, they're not
responsible if it doesn't reproduce due to font issues. Consider
submitting a small raster graphic (a jpeg, for example) along with the
image as a guide --- just make sure they know it's the guide and not
an image you want reproduced! That goes doubly for photographic images
where color-correction is an issue.}

The most important words on the poster should be huge --- at least
twice as large as everything else. If possible, make them arresting,
but not gimmicky. ``\textsc{Open House Senate Debate}'' (in huge
letters) was the opening shot in the Senate this
year. ``\textsc{Alcohol}'' followed, a panel discussion advertised
once again on large, bright, Tabloid-sized paper. I can't speak for
the Alcohol panel, (I was ironically at a forum I saw advertised on a
lamppost) but the open-house debate was well-attended.

Minimize the information on the poster, but don't leave out the
important facts. Note the sponsoring organization. If it's a debate,
put the resolution on it. If it's a panel, put the names of the
speakers on it. Always write the date and time prominently, the
numeric date (so people know it wasn't \emph{last} Wednesday), and the
place on the poster. If it's in a lesser-known campus venue or you're
appealing to freshmen, add a small note explaining where they can find
``Taplin Auditorium'' or the ``Wilcox Black Box.'' If refreshments are
served, make a note of that. All of this text should be large enough
to be readable, but about half the size of the big headline.

A word about logos, seals, and other non-text items: leave them
off. Whig-Clio had a tradition of putting the society seals on every
poster and advertisement. Except for people who were obligated to be
at the events, I doubt that anyone on campus recognized them, much
less attached any significance to them. They just took up valuable
paper real estate. If your group has a logo, leave it off. If your
group uses the Princeton shield, then \emph{really} leave it
off. It's redundant.

A good test for a readable poster involves walking by it. If the
banner headline doesn't jump out at you, then redesign it so that it
does. When you lean in for a closer look, if the details don't
present themselves immediately, then redesign it so that they do.

\subsubsection{Color}

Every poster should use color. I recommend a two-color approach:
standard black for the type, and a bright background: a hot color such
as light orange, light red, pink, or bright yellow. Never use a cool
or dark color such as deep purple or blue, unless you have a strongly
contrasting type color (such as white). The poster will blend in to
its surroundings, and no one will see it. Prefer white paper to blue
paper. This goes doubly for small posters. Colored paper is generally
the same price as white at copying establishments, so be sure to use
it.

Even if your group can underwrite the cost of color copying, think
hard before you use it. Unless you have a particularly striking photo
that will reproduce well, go with two-tone. Most color signs on campus
are hard to read with ill-chosen colors and blurry photographs.

\subsubsection{Orientation}

Tabloid and legal-size posters generally look best when displayed
vertically. Letter-size posters are a toss-up --- use whatever suits
your design.

\subsection{Display principles}

\subsubsection{Displays to avoid}

The limiting factor for design options is generally pecuniary, while
the limiting factor for display options is almost always
temporal. Given a set of posters, the idea is to obtain maximum
coverage in minimum time.

Initial guidelines include places to avoid. Unless your posters are
$11 x 17$ or greater, do not bother with lampposts or bollards. You
may notice, as you travel the campus, that the combined work of wind
and rain destroy lamppost- and bollard- mounted posters faster than
any others. Bollards have the particular disadvantage of being at eye
level of young children, who do not compose most of the Undergraduate
Student Body. Given good weather, bollards and lampposts still carry the
disadvantage of being round, while your posters are flat. Curving of
the posters destroys their visual appeal.

Finally, attaching a poster to a bollard or lamppost requires a good
deal more time than attaching one to a bulletin board or wall. 

In an earlier version of this paper, I directed harsh words at the
practice of postering lampposts. Conversations with classmates,
namely members of the Princeton Committee Against Terrorism, have
convinced me that time spent postering lampposts is not wasted, as
long as one accounts for the distortion of posters stapled to
lampposts. One member of the group suggested stapling the edges of
posters together prior to hanging them; a time-saver if one adopts
the paired-poster method.

While it is gauche to mention it, some poster campaigns have appeared
in campus washrooms. While this author is able to comment only on
one-half of Princeton's facilities, at least two campaigns appeared in
dormitory restrooms during the Fall of 2001. Depending on the event,
one may wish to take advantage of the temporarily captive audience
afforded by restroom stall-doors.

\subsubsection{Displays to use}

Get every bulletin board in every entryway at least once. Get the
bulletin boards in the residential colleges, too. Get the boards in
Frist, but notice that since Frist emphasizes north-south movement and
the bulletin boards are on east-west walls, they're easily missed. 

If you have extra posters, add multiple posters at every
location. This is especially important if you have small
posters. Cover any poster whose event has passed. If you can't find
any, try to minimize the number of posters that you block when you put
up your poster. Consider stabling

If your event is happening the following day, consider placing the
posters on entryway doors. They'll probably be torn down in 24 hours,
but that's more than you need. The half-second or so that one spends
looking at the door as it is pushed open is coverage that no other
poster gets. Note that this may be a violation of the fire code.

Attaching posters to non-bulletin board surfaces is much slower than
attaching them to bulletin boards, simply because of the number of
motions involved. Unless you have a one-handed reel of tape (a tape
gun might work well for this purpose), the action of unwinding the tape
necessarily takes two hands. When stapling posters, you should
generally work alone, or in pairs, but cover each entryway
separately. When taping, working in pairs may be faster, since the
slowdown incurred because you have two people entering each entryway
is made up by the fact that you have four hands instead of two.

Some departments insist that you use tacks to attach posters, and will
have prominently posted signs announcing this. Indulge them. They
usually have tacks on the board. If not, remove them from posters for
events that have passed, or tack your poster using the tacks from the
bottom of another poster.

\subsection{Closing}

Poster design is straightforward, and poster production takes less
than a day. A dedicated group of ten may be able to poster the entire
campus in an hour, if they work quickly and have enough staplers. With
organization, your group will reduce the time and effort necessary to
advertise on campus.

\subsection{Administrivia}

The above are merely suggestions as to how to conduct a poster-based
advertising campaign. They do not carry the endorsement of any campus
groups. The author, Joseph Barillari, urges advertisers to comply with
all relevant campus regulations when launching a postering campaign

\copyright 2001 Joseph Barillari.

\texttt{Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this
document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License,
Version 1.1; with the Invariant Sections being ``Administrivia'', with
no Front-Cover Texts or Back-Cover Texts.  A copy of the license is
available from http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.txt}

\end{document}

% LocalWords:  postering Frist Administrivia