Need help with making a gigposter!

[HokosPokos]

Hello everybody

I'm not a pro of this. I'm only 17 and are selfleardned with photoshop so be kind hehe. Anyway I feel that the poster I've made is very messy (not sure how to explain it in english) but let's see what you think. I could really need some help with what I can improve.

pic:
http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x...ndaffisch4.jpg

Some are written in Swedish so I'll translate:
"Stampen - torsdag 23april"
=
" Stampen (the place we are playing at) - thursday 23rd April"

"Insläpp kl. 20.00 / 18årsgränds
inträde: 100pix"
=
"Inlet(guess it's called that in english, it's when people are allowed to get in the gig): 20.00 / 18years old-limit
entrance: 10bucks"

Any tips?

[scrojo]

ditch photoshop.
bring it down to 2 fonts ( mabey 3 )
make the 2 most important elements large.
the rest, very small.

[James flames]

listen to scrojo. good advice - you don't want to ram information down people's throats.

another good practice is to hang the poster on a wall across the room and stand as far from it as you can and look at it. if you can still get the basic idea of what the poster is advertising, then you did good. if not, try again.

[HokosPokos]

Alright, yeah it was good tips. Helped me alot.

I have made a new version (similar to the older one but more "easy" to look at maybe). I have done three candidates. Tell me wich one you like/dislike most and why. How I can improve it and so forth. Would be very much appreciated

Pic1

Pic2

This one has a very hastymade "upsidedown-V" of barbed wire. If I choose to use that one I will make it look better. The picture of David bowie is maybe a little to much but the best shape for this picture I could find fast. These are all just beta-versions hehe

Pic3

I thought that maybe the motorheadskull could draw some attention? Or maybe it's better just to have good ol' Lemmy as he is?

The swedish information (where, how etc) is the same.

[steve w]

1 and 2 are the same.
or am I missing something?
that's much better than #3, though.
simplify simplify

[steve w]

make the Love Banks and KTB metal logos smaller

[farleypig]

and try it without the logos angled. there are enough dimensions to the poster and you don't want to take away from the main image.

[HokosPokos]

Yes, pictures 1 and 2 are pretty much the same picture. Execpt! That the bandlogos (motorhead kiss etc) are angled are more "free" in the poster. Don't know if that was good or bad so I did two versions of it.

And yeah, maybe it would be better with the other bandlogos (KTB and LoveBanks) not angled. I will try it tomorrow.

[MaximumFluoride]

There is no need to ditch Photoshop. Just try to make the image look like it didn't come out of Photoshop. That is the key to effectively using software.

otherwise I agree with the other sentiments in this thread so far.

[RichieGoodtimes]

I disagree with everything in this thread.

Keep doing what you're doing and then at some point something will click and you'll get it.