A great poster does the job perfectly: it grabs attention and gets people to take action. In fact, over 35% of consumers visit a local business after seeing outdoor signs or posters.
After 15 years of printing custom posters for brands of every size, we have learned what works on a wall and what gets ignored.
So, whether you’re promoting a concert, a weekend sale, or a grand opening, we’ve dished out a few tips and secrets on how to make a poster that improves customer engagement.
What Are the Secrets to Making a Poster That Sells?
Based on our expertise and with no fluff, here are the five secrets that should be applied in every poster that, in fact, gets people to act:
- Know your audience and design for their taste
- Convey one clear message or idea
- Use visual contrast to stop foot traffic
- Evoke a response that makes the piece memorable
- End with a strong, specific call to action
Let’s go through each of them one by one below.
How To Make a Poster That Grabs Attention?
Secret #1: Know your audience
The 1st question you should ask is: “Who are you designing this poster for?”
That single question shapes every choice you make, from your colors to your fonts to your imagery, and even your wording.
All need to match the habits, preferences, and culture of the people you want to reach.
All in all, a poster for a heavy metal show should not look like a poster for a yoga retreat. When you design for a specific person instead of “everyone,” your messaging should be different.
Secret #2: Convey a clear message or idea
Every poster that sells begins with a good idea.
When making a poster, focus on what’s essential.
It’s quite important to pick a dominant element to catch the eye, whether that is a photo, an illustration, or a bold line of text.
Next, the rest of your design should support it. A close-up visual, a dramatic crop, a huge headline, or a large empty space can all anchor a poster.
Choose the one that fits your concept best and build around it.
Save more with custom bulk poster printing.
Secret #3: Use visual contrast to stop foot traffic
Contrast is what makes a poster jump off a crowded wall, and it works on more than just color.
You can contrast size, weight, empty space against dense text, photography against illustration, or light against dark.
The goal here is to create a clear focal point that pulls the eye in front of the people.
So, above all, follow these steps below:
- Start with one idea: Decide the single thing you want people to remember, and make every contrast choice serve it.
- Pick one dominant element: Give one item, usually your headline or main image, far more visual weight than everything else so the eye knows where to land first.
- Cut the clutter: Extra spacing is not wasted space. White space boosts legibility and impact at a distance, so let your key element breathe.
Secret #4: Evoke a response
The posters people remember make them feel something. Words and images carry strong ties to emotion, and you can use that to your advantage.
You can trigger an emotional response with several different methods, including the following:
- Imagery: Use close-ups of faces or eyes for empathy, before/after contrasts for urgency or hope, nostalgic visuals for warmth, and unexpected or surreal images to spark curiosity.
- Color choice: Warm reds/oranges signal urgency or excitement, cool blues/greens feel calm or trustworthy, high-contrast black and white feels dramatic, and a single unexpected color pop creates tension.
- Composition and scale: Oversized elements create awe, isolated subjects in space feel lonely or important, motion cues add energy, and symmetry feels reassuring while imbalance feels edgy.
- Story and implication: If it’s applicable, show a “before” moment and let the viewer imagine the “after,” use absence as a device, or reference a shared cultural memory the audience recognizes.
- Cropping and framing: Tight crops feel raw and immediate, a frame within a frame creates intimacy, and extreme close-ups of texture trigger a tactile response.
- Line and shape: Diagonal lines feel dynamic and unstable, horizontal lines feel calm, jagged shapes read as chaotic, and repeated motifs build a hypnotic rhythm.
- Texture and finish: Grain or noise adds nostalgia, torn-paper collage feels DIY and urgent, and glossy print finishes like foil or spot UV suggest premium spectacle.
Secret #5: Call to action
You have their attention, and you have stirred a response: now tell them what to do. A poster without a call to action is a conversation that stops halfway.
Be precise and remove any guesswork about the next step. Tell viewers exactly what to do with a direct call to action such as “Buy tickets,” “Visit the store,” or “Register today.”
Also, you can include essential details such as the date, time, venue, website, or store location. Add a QR code only when viewers are likely to scan it immediately.
18 most successful posters in history
Anything Else to Consider When Designing a Poster?
After revealing to you the secrets above, let’s see what else you need to know to make them really converting.
1. Standard vs. Custom sizes for poster printing
Depending on the place where you’re going to hang posters, the sizes can be quite different.
Most often, standard sizes are your budget-friendly option. Working for so long with our clients, we can surely say that this common size lets you print a larger quantity at a lower cost per unit.
4 most common poster sizes and dimensions
2. Which orientation to choose? Vertical or Horizontal?
Overall, posters tend to be vertical, so people read them from top to bottom.
Nevertheless, it’s not a rule. A horizontal layout can stand out precisely as well because it breaks the pattern.
For example, some movie-style designs go wide exactly for that reason. Eventually, square formats (matching the orientation) are all about the brand’s messaging.
3. Structure for readability
A poster has to be legible from a distance and in a hurry.
If the main messaging of the poster is not understandable within seconds, the person passing by will simply skip it. Structure is what makes reading effortless, so plan it before you plan the visuals.
We recommend applying this three-layer information hierarchy to increase your website’s rankings below:
- Headline
- Details (but keep it concise)
- Extras such as sponsor logos, speaker names, and disclaimers. Present, but never competing with the message.
4. Choose readable typography
We advise picking at least two fonts, not less: one for the headline and one for the body copy.
Also, for most posters, sizing your key text between 24 and 48 points keeps it readable from across a room.
So, skip overly curled or heavily stylized fonts for anything important.
For example, a bold sans serif font makes the text serious, an italic serif feels elegant, and loose hand-lettering signals fun.
5. Get the colors right
When designing for print, you need to stay in the CMYK color space. Screens use RGB, but presses print in CMYK. If you design in RGB and hand off the file without converting, your brightest blues and greens can shift and dull once they hit paper.
Set your document to CMYK from the very beginning so the printed result matches what you approved. This single habit prevents a lot of disappointment at delivery, and it is the easiest fix in the whole process of how to create a poster.
Read more: Color Psychology for Posters: Which Colors Attract Customers
Why Choose ChilliPrinting for Printing Your Posters
Design gets you halfway. Print quality carries the rest. At ChilliPrinting, we have spent 15 years helping brands turn strong files into posters that look sharp on the wall and hold up in the real world. Our team checks your bleed, color, and resolution before anything runs, so the poster you pictured is the poster you get.
We built our process for both single showpieces and high-volume campaigns. Whether you need a dozen premium prints or five thousand event posters, you get consistent color and a clean, full-bleed finish on every sheet, from the first to the last.
- High-volume efficiency with fast turnaround and steady quality across the entire run.
- A wide choice of paper weights and finishes, from eye-catching gloss to understated matte.
- Expert file checks that catch bleed and resolution problems before they turn into reprints.
Upload your design and order posters that sell with ChilliPrinting today.
Design a poster that captures attention
