A plea or a gripe-depends where you are

This is a plea which may well sound inconsequential or not worth bothering about and may well bring down the wrath of God on my head but..........

To everyone who designs/makes-up/is responsible for Posters

Please. Please PLEASE include the year of production in your designs.

Now this may sound obvious/trite/not worth bothering about BUT I do assure you that in time to come when some poor soul is trying to make sense of the archives (which are usually in a mess when some  brave person decides to get them in some kind of order) it saves much frustration and hair-pulling out.

And this is where I get myself into more trouble- the design is not as important as the basic information-WHAT-WHERE-WHEN-HOW MUCH-WHERE DO I GET TICKETS

OK off my soap-box

Norma, I have designed a few posters in my time and I feel the same as you do, however, I have been frequently told by the theatre company for whom the design is for that they DO NOT WANT the year displayed. As to the logic of this, I cannot fathom.

My point is that it would seem that many theatres request posters this way, but I share your frustration all the same.

Absit invidia (and DFT :nono:)

Jeff Watkins

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Finding an Age

I think the point is that many of these posters are archived or displayed in the foyers. For example, I was at the Melville theatre just this Friday gone and found a poster of a show I had done there several years back. This poster DID have the year on it which was useful.

I have often seen foyer displays such as this where years are not provided and I find myself thinking "When did they put that on?" and I am sure I am not the only one who does this.

Also for archival purposes, being able to tell the difference between two posters for the same play done in different years, would it not be handy to have the year included?

Having the year adds to the long-term usefulness of the poster.

Also, most if not all movie posters will have release dates on them, if only in the classic Roman Numeral standard. It's a part of the standard blurb that Official Movie posters use. You know, the bit about produced by, starring, etc.

Absit invidia (and DFT :nono:)

Jeff Watkins

Home Page
Yahoo Blog Page

Finding an Age

Thanks for the support from most of you. "Poster Designer" has entirely missed the point- as with most trolls.

Perhaps he/she has never tried getting a mass of information into some sort of chronological order!!

Sounds good in theory, but as one who has spent many many months in trying to make some sense of order out of 40 years past  of a club's posters with almost no other information to go on, it would have made my life a lot easier to have had the year's dates on them!

Usually at the end of a season everything is shoved into an enveolpe and left somewhere"for sorting out later'' and that generally means years later!!

Maybe I'm jusy in an 'oversensitive mood'!! but here is where I disagree with Poster Designer - and Craig.

'"A poster's primary function is to have a short prominent life, prior to a particular event." no it isn't, at least not with us!

Sure that is its prime and obvious function but as outlined by several other people as well as myself,  it serves to remind people of dates and is of tremendous assistance in later years. Try sorting out 40 years from a bundle of posters and almost nothing else except people's memories- not always accurate.

I didn't think I'd stir up such a response, but it's been interesting.

I will now gracefully retire from the subject and promise never to mention it on air again

(That'll be the day do I hear a voice or two??)

Agreed "Poster Designer" , that would be a very simple (and simplistic) solution to the problem ... for future archivist's ... but unfortunately it will not solve the problems of the here and now. As for Norma's primary problem..... short of dredging through the Box Office archives and "rights Applications" (which should have been held in safe keeping) to determine which poster matched which production in which year, I'm afraid I cannot help.

However, I second the motion raised by "Poster Designer" (oh darn!!... does this constitute troll fodder? :O) to set a precedent and place a 10 pt year in the bottom R/H corner, either in Roman numerals or in English (?), of all poster designs to make our future librarians/archivist's work just that little bit easier... I know I'll certainly be pushing for it with any show's I have a hand in in future!

"Be nice to your Tech's - or they'll turn out the lights and go home!"

I 'promised' that I wouldn't say another word....... but.... just have to comment on Taureans comment above!!

What, for the love of Mike is the inherent problem with simply putting "2008 after "November 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9"

But then, I'm just a simple soul who likes things clear.

This is a good point Norma, since your topic came up, I checked a few posters, flyers & even old programmes.

Sure enough no year dates were on them anywhere?

As an aside I also thought back on posters I have seen being valued on the Antique Road Shows. Unless they had a copyright symbol & the date year in Roman numerals. They had difficulties in dating them, only referring to about or around a few years in an approximate era or whatever.

Your right we are slack & I don't understand why we don't just put the year - it is only usually two numbers after all!

Well, if I have made just ONE convert it's been worthwhile!!

Thanks LOGOS!