Clip Art Makes Your Posters Interesting

Adding graphics to a poster or banner enhances it's appeal and helps deliver your message in a more memorable way. The problem is that most of us are not blessed with artistic talents. However, there is a way we all can create eye-catching art for our posters and banners by using clip art.

Clip art on the web vs. on a CD-ROM:

Use any internet search engine to search for "clip art" and you'll find a multitude of web sites with excellent clip art that's available FREE. Here a a few links to clip art sites:

FREE GRAPHICS

BIZART

The problem is that essentially all of these are offering clip art designed for use on web pages. That means the images are low resolution. When you blow them up to poster size they'll have jagged edges and look horrible.

An alternative is to purchase a set of clip art CD-ROMS, such as the IMSI Master Clips set. You can typically get several hundred thousand images for under $40. These will typically be higher resolution images that can be more easily used on posters and banners.

Using Web Based Clip Art:

When you've got to get your poster done now, and you don't have a clip art CDs available, then turning to the web may be your only alternative. Here are some tips that will help make web based clip art look better on your poster.

Don't try to use clip art designed for the web directly on your poster using your computer. Instead use your computer to create a smaller, 8-1/2" X 11" version of your poster. Then run this original through the scanner on your poster printer to create the poster. Using the poster printer scanner to enlarge the image will result in a better looking poster than using your computer to enlarge the image.

If you must enlarge an image in your computer, first increase the color setting to 16 million colors, even if you are enlarging a black and white image. This allows the computer to "shade" the edges resulting in smoother looking edges.