Posters can convey information and contribute to the aesthetics of an election. It is not surprising that they are amongst the most regularly collected electoral items.

The poster has always been an art form as well as a communicator, but the two are not always compatible and the purpose and placement of posters has to be considered in advance of any other criterion. When form and function mesh, a poster can be a very effective tool in the hands of the educator.

Where form outweighs function, the message can be lost and posters can be a waste of paper, a public eyesore, and an individual frustration. In short, a proper balance needs to be achieved between art and substance for a voter education poster to achieve its function.

Banners play a similar role as posters, although they are normally produced on fabric. Banners can be used for larger signs and in more outdoor situations. Their design also requires an understanding of purpose and placement, and then an appreciation of the production requirements that will translate suitably on the medium available.

Purpose

• Creating an Election Environment: If the purpose of the poster or banner is to decorate the environment and convey a particular feeling in regard to the election, then it is appropriate to make aesthetic considerations dominant. Posters and banners are used to decorate meeting places, streets, voting sites, and other electoral offices. Such displays, if they become ubiquitous, or if one of the posters becomes a collector's item and is therefore displayed widely by individuals, can create an imposing and climate-building backdrop to an election.

Many cities have established a tradition of using banners to fly on lampposts on special occasions or to hang on the outsides of buildings. Banners convey more of a message than flags but have a similar impact. They are colourful, motivational, and energy creating.

• Identity: A second purpose might be to develop an identity for the election management body or for the organisation conducting the educational programme. While such an identity may be achieved merely from the organisation's association with its products, a newly formed organisation may have to establish itself and a poster or banner displayed at appropriate places may be the best way to do this. Such posters are designed around the logo, image, or slogan of the organisation, or seek to associate the organisation with a particular historical moment or popular figure.
• Culture: A third purpose may be to establish a culture in favour of elections and democracy through its association with popular culture, celebrities, or historical moments. Such designs again may be primarily aesthetic in approach, but as they are beginning to convey a message they will have to come to terms with certain limitations imposed by the positioning of the display.

In a similar vein, an election can have certain key slogans or concepts it wants to convey: "Your Vote Counts," "Vote For Peace and Prosperity," "Heal Your Land," and so on.

These posters may require a simple image or slogan, and can use colour to enhance the emotional rather than the communicative impact of the production.

• Dates, Times, Places, and Processes: When the purpose of the poster includes the communication of information that must be read and absorbed, designers should concentrate on that information as the central image.

Such posters can advertise the date of an election, the places where voting or registration takes place, educational events, the recruitment of election staff, key voter education messages beyond the simple election slogan, and so on. Many election management bodies have prepared posters explaining steps in the voting process. Because all parts of an election management body are likely to want to communicate such information, there is some need to coordinate such activity and ensure that those requesting the posters and those designing them attempt to convey more than one bit of information in each production. This can be overdone, though, and there comes a moment when efficiency deals a blow to effectiveness.

• Audience: Posters can have common general purposes but be aimed at different audiences. Obviously, a poster aimed at young people is going to differ from one intended for placement in an army base or government office. Some have been specially designed for women. It is however important to note that in most cases posters providing voter education messages are designed for a general audience.

Placement

The positioning of a poster must be determined before its production. When the purpose is clear, designers of posters should consider the intentional placement of a poster as well as the possible unintended placement. Even when precise instructions are given to those who will place posters, it is likely that the posters will also be used in other contexts. The placement instructions may well have to list the contexts within which the poster should not be used. Election laws and local ordinances may also place restrictions on where posters may be hung. With respect to banners, special permission may need to be obtained to hang them from light posts, buildings, or other poles or structures. Educators need to be aware of these restrictions and requirements and pass this information along to those who will be hanging the posters.

• Bulletin Boards: If a poster is intended for a bulletin board in an indoor situation such as a post office, where people will be able to look at it with some leisure and where they may even be able to step up close for a further look, it is possible to contemplate a design with a substantial word content, and to consider the design along the lines of a page of a book blown up to about A1 or A2 size. It may even be possible to consider smaller sizes such as A3 or A4 if only a small amount of information is to be conveyed. A similar approach can be taken at other similar venues. Such posters should be designed to convey one message at a distance and then entice the reader to come closer for more information.
• Outdoor: If, on the other hand, the poster is to be displayed on a roadside for passing motorists to read, the same poster cannot be used. But often they are. Drivers and passengers in cars can cope with about seven large words in light print on a dark background on an A1 or A2 poster. An indication of what can be used can be obtained from a study of the size and design of those road and freeway signs that now have international currency.

When more detailed messages must be conveyed, and there are other ways to do this apart from distracting drivers, such messages can be sequenced along a roadside.

• Meeting Places: In classroom or meeting situations, where people will be able to study a poster but only at a distance, limited information can be given and this may have to be supplemented with talk and interpretation or discussion. Such posters seldom contain words, especially if they are being used in situations of low literacy. In such situations, words become puzzles that do not convey meaning but do distract from other communication and cause insecurity amongst learners. It is in this situation that the flip chart becomes a particularly useful tool.
• Passing Crowds: People may not be able to stop and read or browse, nor may they be sitting down in a classroom setting. They may well be the drivers, just passing by. Perhaps they are on a subway escalator, at a bus stop or in a crowd of people. Placement within these contexts requires the same consideration as for those moving faster: the conveying only of sufficient information and the possible repetition or sequencing of posters.

In general, repetition of a complex poster is less successful than sequencing of a variety of simple posters. People are seldom disciplined or skilled enough to be able to start reading or looking in the middle of a message (as would be required for people to get through a detailed poster while moving past a bunch of repetitions).

Thus, placement determines how much information the poster should contain, and in what format, size and colours, it should be designed. Many posters are designed and then approved in meeting rooms, only to disappoint when seen in situ. Where possible, an in situ evaluation should be conducted for any poster that must convey critical information.

Production

Effective poster and banner design is based on purpose and placement, and not necessarily on colourfulness or glossy finish. While colour can play an important role in attracting the attention of voters and in creating a mood, some successful designs have made use of very limited colours and less costly paper and printing. These types of posters may not become collector's items, but that presumably is not the primary purpose.

Countries with a culture of poster advertising for newspapers will understand how effective a few words on a white newsprint background can be in enticing one to purchase a newspaper. Such a purchase should be considered a lesson for the design of a poster and the complementary activities that can follow such a design.

But in general, production will be on paper or cloth for posters and banners. Recent innovations in large-scale printing have made it possible to use plastic and other synthetic materials to good effect.

Reproduction of the image, when a large number of copies are required, is likely to be through printing. And the size of the poster is thus limited by the size of the printing press. It is possible to print large posters in sections and then compile these, as is often done with outdoor displays. Whatever size one chooses, there will be ramifications for packaging, storage, delivery and distribution, as well as the available spaces where posters can be hung and the amount of instruction, effort, and supplies required to hang the posters properly.

There are alternative ways to prepare smaller runs, or to do runs where the cost per unit does not come down substantially. The most costly is the preparation of lithographs, usually used for limited edition artistic renditions. A cheaper method and one capable of more copies without degradation, is by silk-screening. Simple posters with limited wording (not necessarily losing impact) can be made by using paint and stencilling or other simple techniques.

Individual banners can be made using standard sign-writing techniques and paints. Otherwise, silk-screen and stencilling techniques, or the use of fabric printing methods, are appropriate. The use of treated paper or plastic may allow new methods of printing or commercial silk-screening.

Each of these has its uses. The ability to produce a poster in very simple circumstances makes it not only a useful tool but also an appropriate educational method.

Complementary Activities

The creation of posters by students provides a method of categorizing and synthesizing learning in a creative way that is a very powerful test of what has been learned, and is also a powerful message to others of what has been learned. Because of this, educators can choose to decorate a place with locally produced posters and banners rather than with those developed at a distance. In some cases, poster and logo design as well as slogan development contests have been held in schools to generate public relations and media coverage for the voter education programme and to select winning entries for use by the voter education programmes.

In such ways, the poster becomes a teaching tool, and, while some posters are purposely produced for this, others can be appropriated by a skilled group educator.

Notes:

[1] Standard paper sizes are different in the United States of America and in those places which have adopted the European standard. This topic area uses the European standard of measurement. An A4 size is the standard letter page. A5 is that page folded in half; A3 a double size.