Graphics

Occasionally I get asked to produce a poster for local village events, usually to promote the annual village fair. The pandemic put a pause on that so it hasn’t happened for a couple of years, but the loosening of restrictions and the Queen’s impending Platinum Jubilee in June was cause to resurrect it, and I was once again asked to come up with a poster.

My design preference is to go for a simple to read approach so the viewer doesn’t have to search too hard for information, and as a voluntary activity I also don’t want to spend a huge amount of time creating something. For the Jubilee poster I wanted a vaguely retro, washed out feel, utilising the red, white and blue of the Union flag in the border and leaving the bulk of the space for the event information.

My preferred graphics package these days is GIMP, a free to download, open source image manipulation program, not dissimilar to Photoshop which I used to use in university. I slightly resent the idea of having to buy a subscription to the modern iteration of Photoshop, having learned to use it when paying for the package meant you had your own copy to use for as long as there was a machine able to run it on. GIMP works very well for my relatively simple design requirements however, so I’m happy to stick with it.