BLIA YAD, with collaboration from San Francisco YAD, San Diego YAD, and Los Angeles 2 YAD, launched their first Digital Media Creation Workshop: Poster Design on July 24th, 6 PM PST. Selene Chew, president of San Francisco YAD, instructed the participants to design posters using Canva, a website for designing. Thirty-eight participants attended the workshop.
Selene first introduced herself, her professional career as a designer, her experience with designing posters. In this workshop, she taught attendees to use Canva as an online design tool for creating posters.
Into the workshop, Selene introduced the important elements of posters, they must be 1) targeted, 2) informative and 3) attractive. Before designing the poster, one must first know who the targeted audience is and the contents that should be included in the poster. Then, one can decide the presentation and style of the poster. One must also consider the platform where the poster will be promoted as it will decide the size and dimensions of the poster. The time zone of the event is critical if the event is held online as there may be participants from different time zones who may want to attend your event.
Selene also shared that the key to designing an attractive poster is displaying the theme of the poster through font selection and different visual assets. In that way, the audience will have a pleasant poster reading experience. Selene also recommended a combination of fonts for different purposes; fonts suitable for headings or titles, fonts suitable for main or general text. It is not always that the more fonts the better, but one can adjust the font size to show various visual effects. One can also use different visual assets, such as photos, drawings, shapes, and patterns, or different materials to express the theme of the poster event. Selene also shared that the use of spacing is also important, leaving enough spacing at the borders and making sure the elements are aligned. Backgrounds can also be modified to complement the theme and variety and aesthetics. There is no right or wrong for poster design, keeping good communication within the team and making prompt corrections are key to achieving the desired result. Selene also recommended attendees gain inspiration from available posters if one does not know where to start with poster design; collect the contents, and try different design templates available on Canva. She also shared various posters SFYAD designed over the years,
At the end of the workshop, attendees presented their posters they created during the workshop, and Selene and the team gave feedback and answered questions from the audience.
The “Digital Media Creation Workshop” series consists of poster design, video creation, and website building. They will be held in July, August, and September respectively. For more info, log on to: https://bit.ly/2021dmcworkshop