When Printing Posters of Yourself
To become an extremely moderately successful singer-songwriter, you also need to become an extremely moderately successful graphic designer.
This is because, among other things like album covers and website pages, you’ll need to design posters. Your college buddy Michael used to do this for you for free, but you don’t want to bother him anymore. Besides, like many of your peers, he’s married now with a toddler and a mortgage.
So you’ll learn the basic elements of design, such as the golden ratio, complementary colors, and how the eye naturally follows a Z pattern when scanning.
You’ll take this knowledge to a free program on the internet that’s an off-brand version of Photoshop. You’ll upload your best promo photo that your friend Daisy took of you out in a wheat field one Saturday.
This is a photo of you holding your acoustic guitar doing the “look-away.” The look-away is a pose in which you stare into the distance as though lost in thought. The goal here is to grab the attention of potential attendees while they are passing by a coffee shop window. The poster must immediately communicate, “Hello, I’m a singer-songwriter with great insight into life’s big questions.” This will be obvious to the potential attendee because who else has time to stand in a wheat field, looking toward the western sky?
Anyway, you’ll upload all the material into the off-brand Photoshop along with the venue name, address, cost, and any other important details. Lastly, you will use the one quote you have from an obscure but professional-sounding entity that isn’t from your hometown. That way, your old high-school classmates will be impressed and you can potentially RSVP to the ever-so-quickly approaching reunion.
Once the poster is finalized, you’ll walk the PDF file down to your local print shop.
This is where it gets tricky.
You see, the workers are usually a little too helpful. They want to make sure you’re a satisfied customer, but what you want is to be left alone. Unfortunately, they will be in your presence when the posters of yourself are being printed. This will be quite awkward.
To avoid the tension, pretend to have an important phone call or, if you have the forethought before entering the shop, put on one of those pairs of glasses with the nose and mustache.