The
Poster
Laws

Art direction for an A1 club night poster, delivered as a flat frontal scan of the printed piece, full bleed, no wall, no frame. The poster is built as photographic collage, never illustration: a 35mm direct-flash photograph of {a dancer caught mid-move}, duotoned in acid green and black, roughly cut out with scissor edges, repeated three times across the poster in a strobe sequence; the second and third repeats degrade into completely flat acid-green ghost silhouettes with no photographic detail, printed offset behind the first. An enormous heavy blackletter wordmark dominates about 60 percent of the frame, overlapping the figures so the {dancer} breaks in front of some letterforms and behind others. Only two type registers exist on the whole poster: that huge blackletter gesture, and tiny monospaced functional text: one info line at the foot, one small vertical spec block set sideways along the right edge, a small barcode in the bottom corner, one small circular rubber-stamp mark. No middle-sized type anywhere. Palette: off-white uncoated paper, near-black ink, and one loud flat acid green #C6FF00 carrying the design. Print physicality: coarse screenprint grain, scan noise, slight misregistration between the green and black layers, flattened paper texture; it must read as something that survived printing. No gradients, no glow, no 3D type. Hold this direction, the text comes next.

The ONLY text, spelled exactly: blackletter headline "{NO SLEEP}". Mono info line at the foot: "{FRIDAY 22 AUGUST · THE CRYPT, LEEDS · 11PM TILL 6AM · £10 ON THE DOOR}". Vertical spec block: "{CAT. NS-001 / LATE LICENCE / 18+}". Circular stamp: "{ALL NIGHT}". No other words anywhere. Every letter crisp and correctly spelled.

One lazy prompt got the pink eyeball render, with OVERATED spelled wrong. The two-stage version got photo cut-outs, strobe ghosts and one acid colour:

Art direction for an A2 cafe promo poster, delivered as a flat frontal scan of the printed piece, full bleed, no wall, no frame. Built as photographic collage, never illustration: a black-and-white 35mm archival photograph of {a small espresso cup on a saucer}, duotoned in deep espresso brown, roughly cut out with scissor edges, placed low in the frame. From the cup a single thin hand-drawn line rises like steam and travels up the poster as a mapped route with two soft bends; along the route sit three small numbered chips with pixelated borders, like stations on a transit map, each chip holding one menu item and its price in tiny monospaced text: the morning ritual drawn as a route. An enormous spencerian script wordmark sweeps across the middle of the poster and bleeds off both left and right edges, overlapping the photograph, printed in one loud flat tomato red #FF4400 with slight misregistration. Only two type registers on the whole poster: the huge script gesture and tiny monospaced functional text (the station chips, one footer line, one small vertical spec block on the edge, a small barcode, one small circular rubber stamp). No middle-sized type anywhere. Palette: warm cream paper, espresso brown photo tones, and the loud flat #FF4400 carrying the design. Print physicality: film grain, scan noise, paper texture, flattened print finish; it must read as printed and handled. No clipart, no cup illustrations, no gradients. Hold this direction, the text comes next.

The ONLY text, spelled exactly: script wordmark "{Alba}". Station chips top to bottom: "{01 ESPRESSO 2.8}", "{02 FLAT WHITE 3.6}", "{03 CARDAMOM BUN 4.2}". Footer line: "{ALBA COFFEE · 14 CHAPEL STREET · OPEN FROM 7AM}". Vertical spec block: "{ROAST NO. 04 / DAILY}". Circular stamp: "{SINCE 7AM}". No other words anywhere. Every letter and price crisp and correctly spelled.

The lazy prompt returned the canva special: clipart sun, brush swashes, thirty invented menu items. The directed one drew the menu as stations on the steam line, every price correct:

Art direction for a statement poster, delivered as a flat frontal scan of the printed piece, full bleed, no wall, no frame. The field is flat bone-white paper. Two enormous hand-drawn outline words are stacked dead centre and fill most of the frame; the letterforms are transparent windows, and a grainy 35mm photograph of {a dusk sky, deep blue falling into burnt peach} shows through ONLY inside the letters, so the light lives inside the type; outside the letters the paper stays empty. The final letter of the second word repeats twice to the right as empty fading outlines, like a slow shutter dragging: the layout performs the title. Only two type registers on the whole poster: the huge outline letter gesture and tiny monospaced functional text: one credit line at the foot, one vertical film-spec block along the left edge, a small barcode, one small circular processing stamp. All functional marks print in one loud flat cobalt blue #0031FF with slight misregistration. No middle-sized type anywhere. Palette: bone paper, photo tones inside the letters only, loud flat cobalt #0031FF on every functional mark. Print physicality: film grain inside the letter windows, scan noise, paper texture, flattened matte print finish; it must read as something that survived printing. No gradients outside the photo, no glow, no 3D. Hold this direction, the text comes next.

The ONLY text, spelled exactly: outline words "{SLOW}" then "{LIGHT}" stacked. Credit line: "{A FILM BY WAVIBOY · SUMMER 2026}". Vertical spec block: "{35MM / DUSK / 21:47}". Circular stamp: "{PROCESSED BY HAND}". No other words anywhere. Every letter crisp and correctly spelled.

The lazy prompt made a pretty screensaver. The directed one only lets the sky exist inside the letters, so the title enacts itself:

Art direction for an A1 run club poster, delivered as a flat frontal scan of a wrinkled, creased printed sheet, full bleed, no wall, no frame. Monochrome photography is the material: a single 35mm photograph of {a runner in full stride}, reduced to a near-black backlit silhouette, repeated three times moving left to right across the middle of the poster; the first repeat is sharp, the second carries motion blur, the third dissolves almost completely into blur and grain: repetition as motion, the figure fades as it moves. The wordmark sits enormous beneath the sequence in heavy rounded lowercase type printed with a gentle soft-focus blur so the type runs too, yet every letter stays clearly readable. Tiny scattered fragment words sit loose in the corners and margins in small monospaced type, one of them double-printed with misregistration, plus one small edition code line and one small circular rubber stamp. Only two type registers exist on the whole poster: the huge soft-blurred wordmark and the tiny mono fragments. No middle-sized type anywhere. Palette: near monochrome, charcoal black ink on off-white paper; the only colour is one loud flat hi-vis orange #FF6A00 carried by the edition code and the stamp. Print physicality: heavy film grain, wrinkled paper creases, scan noise, flattened texture; it must read as a printed sheet that lived in a jacket pocket. No gradients except the motion blur, no sunrise, no cityscape, no 3D. Hold this direction, the text comes next.

The ONLY text, spelled exactly: blurred rounded lowercase wordmark "{grey hour}". Corner fragments in tiny mono: "{before the city wakes}", "{all paces}", "{no one watching}", "{tuesdays 05:30 · canal loop}". Edition code: "{GH/010 (TM) 2026}". Circular stamp: "{RAIN OR NOT}". No other words anywhere. Every letter readable through the blur and correctly spelled.

The lazy prompt got the sunrise stock poster with a motivational tagline. The directed one prints the same runner three times and lets him dissolve; the layout does the running:

Art direction for an A1 streetwear drop poster, delivered as a flat frontal scan of the printed piece, full bleed, no wall, no frame. The field is a true black void with huge empty space. Built on photography passed through a physical treatment, never illustration: one hard frontal flash photograph of {a matte black technical shell jacket}, silver zip hardware catching the flash, processed through a coarse pixel dither into a bitmap halftone mesh of pale dots, floating in the upper half of the void. The brand wordmark is a glyph collision: one single word set enormous across the middle of the poster, its letterforms fused from three different type systems, a blackletter capital first letter, roman serif letters, and crude pixel-mono letters, with a small registered trademark symbol embedded at the end; printed bone white with slight misregistration, the dithered {jacket} breaking behind one letterform and in front of another. In the lower left sits a tiny monospaced stock ledger: ten numbered rows, nine of them struck through with single hand-ruled lines, only the first row left alive; the sell-out is performed in the type. Remaining information scatters to the corners in tiny monospaced text, plus a small barcode and one small circular rubber stamp. Only two type registers exist on the whole poster: the giant glyph-collision wordmark and the tiny mono text. No middle-sized type anywhere. Palette: near monochrome, black void, bone-white ink, pale silver dither tones, nothing else; texture replaces colour. Print physicality: photocopy grain, scan noise, slight misregistration, flattened matte print finish; it must read as something that survived printing. No neon glow, no smoke, no chrome, no graffiti, no gradients, no 3D type. Hold this direction, the text comes next.

The ONLY text, spelled exactly: glyph-collision wordmark "{Reliqua}" with a small "®" at its end. Stock ledger rows top to bottom: "01", "02", "03", "04", "05", "06", "07", "08", "09", "10", with rows 02 through 10 struck through and row 01 left unstruck. Top left corner: "{DROP 07}". Top right corner: "{NO RESTOCK}". Foot line: "{ONE PIECE REMAINS}". Bottom right corner: "{©2026}". Circular stamp: "{FINAL RUN}". No other words anywhere. Every letter and number crisp and correctly spelled.

The lazy prompt threw ten hype elements at a wall. The directed one strikes nine rows off a stock ledger and lets the type sell the scarcity:

Art direction for an A3 club night flyer, delivered as a flat frontal scan of the photocopied piece, full bleed, no wall, no frame, with a rough hand-ruled black border. TYPE-ONLY: no photograph, no illustration of any object or figure anywhere; the hand-inked letterforms are the image. The night's name is hand-drawn in fat rounded bubble letters sitting inside a hand-inked oval blob, and that oval repeats four times in a row across the upper half of the flyer, each repeat printed lighter and slightly smaller than the last, like a sound decaying: the layout performs {the echo}. Beneath the repeats run thin hand-ruled horizontal lines like a musical staff, crossing the full width. The lineup sits in the lower half in fat hand-inked bubble capitals, each name on its own line, dense black ink. A few small hand-drawn starburst doodles scattered sparsely. Only two type registers exist: the hand-inked bubble letterforms and tiny monospaced functional text tucked small at the foot. No middle-sized type anywhere. Strict monochrome: dense black ink on off-white paper, no second colour anywhere; texture replaces colour. Print physicality: photocopy speckle, toner drag, spray grain bleeding at the edges of the blobs, zine physicality; it must read as a photocopied flyer that survived a lamppost. No gradients, no photos, no smoke, no lasers, no clean vector edges. Hold this direction, the text comes next.

The ONLY text, spelled exactly: the bubble word inside each of the four ovals: "{ECHO}". Lineup in bubble capitals, one per line: "{MARROW}", "{OKAPI}", "{SLOW POISON}". Tiny mono date line at the foot: "{SAT 30 AUG · THE OLD SWAN BASEMENT · 10PM · £5}". Small circular stamp: "{PAY ON DOOR}". No other words anywhere. Every letter crisp and correctly spelled.

The lazy prompt got lasers and smoke. The directed one needs no image at all: four ECHO blobs decaying across a photocopied page perform the night's name: