Which of these formats work for a non-music event?

The festival lineup block works for anything with a long bill: a conference, a fete, a comedy night. Factory and 4AD transfer to galleries and film. The rest carry their scene with them.

How do I get the right amount of information on a flyer?

Match the tradition. Sound system and hip hop flyers list everybody. Factory lists almost nothing. Pick the one that suits how much you actually have to say, rather than fighting the style.

Why do the 1990s styles look dated in a good way?

Because they record what the software could do that year. Chrome bevels, lens flares and raytraced chequerboards are specific to a moment, so reproducing them precisely reads as a reference rather than as bad design.

Music scenes

The scenes, and the graphic rules each used to say who a night was for.

A music flyer has one job before it has any other: tell the right person that this is for them, and tell everybody else that it is not. That is why these styles are so specific. The typeface, the paper size and the amount of information on the sheet all encode a scene, and a reader who belongs to it can read that in half a second from across a record shop.

Flyers printed for one night

Four club traditions. Small, cheap, printed in a hurry, and handed to you outside somewhere else.

Rave and Acid Graphics

Neon on black, a smiley, warped type and every effect the software had.

$Drum and Bass Flyer: Early 3D renders and fractals, chrome type, and a much darker palette than the rave next door.$

Drum and Bass Flyer

Early 3D renders and fractals, chrome type, and a much darker palette than the rave next door.

Reggae Sound System Flyer

Red gold and green, a lion, and every sound system named in a different typeface.

80s NYC Hip Hop Flyer

Hand-drawn symmetrical borders, airbrushed display lettering, and a full bill in black and white.

Labels and bills

Two record labels that designed everything the same way, and two poster formats that had to carry a whole lineup.

Factory Records

Almost no information, borrowed classical or industrial imagery, and a catalogue number.

4AD Records

A photograph of something unidentifiable, layered and soft, with type dissolved into it.

Festival Indie Lineup

One central graphic, then the whole bill stacked underneath in strict size order.

Heavy Metal Concert Poster

One airbrushed apocalypse, a spiked blackletter logo, and everything in shades of black.

Scene graphics beyond the stage

Two places a music scene's graphics ended up: on a cinema hoarding and on the underside of a board.

Blaxploitation Movie Poster

A painted hero in a dynamic pose, hot funk colours, and a tagline in chunky 70s type.

Skateboard Graphics

A cartoon or a logo pushed to the edge of taste, screened flat on a coloured ground.

Make one of them

Copy a prompt into an image model and pay for that one run. No subscription.

Open an image model

Other style groups

Graphic design movementsThe movements, and the wording that gets the look of each one.18 design movements Art movements as postersEach movement written as a poster the movement itself might have printed.21 art movements Print and reproduction looksThe printing processes, and the wording for what each does to ink.11 print processes Handmade and folkWays to make a poster that looks like a person made it, not a studio.9 handmade looks Place and eraNational and period styles, each with the rules that made it local.14 regional styles Propaganda and protestPolitical traditions, and the visual rules each used to move people.7 political traditions Screen and digitalThe looks that came from a screen, and the wording that gets each one.10 digital looks

Drawing and render stylesDrawing a character rather than printing a sheet? The same reference, for how a picture is made.

Because the flyer is a filter. It has to tell the right person that the night is for them and everybody else that it is not, and the typeface and the palette do that faster than any wording could.