Critique on flyers not used

Hello, I am new to this site and I didn’t realize there was a forum just for critique. I previously made a post in a graphic design forum, where I posted asking for critique about past flyers that were used for events. (I am not a professional at all but was asked to create flyers).

If interested the post for those flyers in the Graphic Design Forum, and the post is
titled: flyer-feedback-for-an-amateur
Feel free to comment on that post as well, I could always use more pointers.

For this specific post, I wanted to seek feedback on designs I created for past events but the flyers were not used (the flyers that were used, instead of these are in the link above, to see what they went with). I will post these not used flyers below.

The concept of these flyers is based on particular events held throughout the year, they generally have a theme or it’s for a specific festival.
The goal/purpose of these flyers is to make people aware of the event/festival and the date/time it takes place so ppl come to the event.
The format is mainly digital, just exported to a jpeg rarely is it ever printed out. It is to post on social media and or a website, txt msg.
The audience is all age ranges.
My experience level as I stated in the thread above, is amateur. I was asked/given the opportunity to create flyers for these events. They provide professional flyers for me as examples but I do what I can, you can’t pull a professional from an amateur in one night. I am just looking to get better, hopefully, to make it look more professional but right now it’s pretty bad.
Nature of job- its volunteer, as stated, I was asked to do these flyers, and I am given specific information to place on the flyers (sometimes I purposely take it off because I think it makes it too busy, only to be asked to put it back on there or always keep it on the flyer, such as a picture of the ppl). This is for a religious organization and its events.

All of these flyers are created using GIMP. I do not have Photoshop or anything like that. I hope these flyers uploaded, on my end i can’t see them but it says uploaded.




You are persistent and you are focused on working this one problem to solution. That’s positive.

There are a lot of things going on here that need to be addressed, but I’ll only list three.

  1. Based on the art, I don’t have any idea of what kind of festival this is. The backgrounds seem to be random stock art.
  2. It seems like you want to center things, but you’re eyeballing it rather than using alignment tools, so that looks very random too.
  3. Overall, they look like pieces that were put together very quickly, without much thought. Is that the right message for this event?

Amateurs can take classes. You would benefit from formal instruction in the basics of design.

Thank you for your reply and input.

  1. It was just random stuff I created using different pictures or brushes, colors.
  2. Correct I never used alignment tools to center things I just eyeballed it and tried to line it up best I could.
  3. These all were put together quickly, from what I recall, but after looking back at emails for specifics, I sent all of the drafts shown here in this post, on June 15th and the one they went with sent on July 13th and was approved on July 14 for an event that was scheduled for the July 21st-23rd.

In regard to classes, do you mean like free classes online like khan academy or like college classes for credits, a degree, certification?

Most of my comments from your first thread are still relevant here, so I won’t repeat them. I also agree with what Mojo said.

Mixing centered and flush left type is rarely a good idea. For that matter, I wouldn’t have centered any of the typography except on the layout where everything is centered.

The paint splatters seem to be gratuitous, in that I have no idea why they’re there since there’s no obvious connection to the subject matter.

The lack of contrast in the crowd images is a problem. The value (the ratio of dark to light) of the crowd is more or less the same as its background. Squint your eyes and look at it; the crowd disappears into the background.

In any layout, the negative shapes are as important as the positive shapes. If you’re not familiar with the terms, positive shapes roughly equate to the foreground elements while negative shapes equate to the background. You shouldn’t think of the negative spaces as being a neutral background on which the positive shapes are arranged. The interactive relationship between positive and negative is extremely important. In your layouts, you seem inclined to scoot the positive shapes here and there in an attempt to balance the weights. This creates a bland and lifeless layout without the personality of a more asymmetrical arrangement that incorporates the background shapes as counterbalancing design elements.

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@Just-B Thank you for the input and feedback. It is appreciated. I figured I might as well share everything I have done used and not used and get feedback.