Help with college gun club flyers...

[heypete]

Hey folks, I recently formed a student-run gun club at the college I attend. Public reception has been varied -- some are vehemently opposed, anonymously ripping down flyers, etc. Others have been extremely receptive to the idea. Fortunately, the Student Activities Director is quite gun-friendly, and fully supports the club.

Oleg and Kit have generously given me permission to use their various images on flyers promoting the club, for which I am extremely grateful.

Unfortunately, neither myself nor anyone else in the club has the creative graphical skills nor the proper software for making suitable flyers. Presently, I have a B&W laser printer, though I can go to a copy shop to print in color, possibly on glossy paper.

My request: I need volunteers to help create flyers for the college club based on some basic input (i.e. the club is named "CSM Rifle Club", as well as having some contact information, meeting time/dates, etc.). Flyers should not be too risque, politicial, or confrontational. They should be friendly, welcoming, and informative. While pictures of AK-47s and AR-15s are acceptable, I'd like to minimize the "scary" factory. More "traditional" firearms and their uses (in this case informal competition, plinking, and hole-punching) would be very appreciated.

Flyers shouldn't be aggressively "constitutional" (you and I know its our right, but it's not a "hook" to get new shooters involved, you know?) or SHTF zombie-hunting-ish.

Flyers would be printed in either grayscale or color on standard 8.5x11" paper, though having high-res copies for enlargements and posters would be appreciated. If you make a grayscale poster, please make sure that it contrasts well -- some don't look so great when printed.

I realize that many of you are extremely busy and may not have time to help, but even the tiniest bit of help would be appreciated.

Cheers!

P.S. Any help with the club's website would also be nice. My friend in Sweden did most of the designing, which I like, but some additional help with the design and suggestions for FAQs and other content would be appreciated.

 

[Mulliga]

Your website already looks better than ours.

Any fliers you put up should ideally have those tear-off tags at the bottom so that people can get the contact info and keep it with them. The images and writing should be big, bold, and in color, and the fliers should be placed in high-traffic areas (bus stops, outside classroom halls, anywhere where people bunch up). You can also hand fliers directly out to people - obviously you'll get 90% of people just throwing them away, but it's a great way to spread awareness of your club to the other 10%.

It's best to use some humor. Check this simple one I whipped up last semester...

http://www.cise.ufl.edu/~akwan/Joinup.doc

Good luck!

 

[AechKay]

I'm a web designer and I work with graphics. I'll try to whip something up and see if you like it.

 

[jobu07]

Here's something I threw together to get you an idea of simplicity. Sometimes you don't need catchy graphics to do the job, just change the info to suit you and maybe put some catchier phrases on it. Always worked for me.

 

[heypete]

Hmm. Both very good ideas. Thanks! I'll work based off of that, and probably use one of Oleg or Kit's photos.

Of course, any additional help is always welcome.

 

[jobu07]

Print it up on flourescent paper too, if you can. I know the image you put on it might be hard to see then, but if you are doing gray scale or black and white shouldn't matter. The flourescent sheets are more eye grabbing. Nice full color images, though, on white paper are nice too.

 

[Mad Man]

Regarding:

Joinup.doc

Gun Club Flier.doc


Not everybody can open Microsoft Word documents (.doc files). Some people use operating systems other than Windows. And not every Windows PC comes with MS Office. I would suggest using a cross-platform document format, such as PDF. This may seem like nit-picking, but you don't want to exclude Macintosh and Linux users if you're trying to reach as wide an audience as possible.

You can convert Word documents to PDF using OpenOffice.org text writer. It is compatible with Open Document formats (.odt), Microsoft Word (.doc), and can save either as Portable Document Format (.pdf). The nice things about PDF files is that they will print exactly the way they look on every system.


The entire OpenOffice.org office suite is available for free at http://www.openoffice.org/


Note: OpenOffice.org cannot change PDF documents once they've been created. In addition to saving your files as PDF, be sure to save them in a format that can be edited, such as .odt or .doc.

Adobe Reader (formerly Acrobat Reader) is available for free at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/alternate.html

But I find it to be bloatware. A much smaller and faster PDF reader for Windows is available for free at http://foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php


UPDATE: Just to demonstrate what I mean, I've converted Joinup.doc and Gun Club Flier.doc to PDF format, using OpenOffice 2 Beta. The files are attached here.

 

[Mad Man]

How about

EXCERCISE YOUR RIGHT TO CHOOSE

as a slogan?

Possible picture:

A woman at a gun store counter, deciding on what type of gun to buy.

 

[heypete]

Mad Man: That's true, but I can't edit PDF files. Word files are fine in this case, as I have OO and can edit the .doc files. PDF would work fine for the "final draft", but for this situation, .doc is all right.

 

[bratch]

Couple thoughts:

I read your FAQs. I have invited 2 college students to the range that have never shot before in the past month. Both of them said they'd go but didn't have the liscense to shoot. In OK the only liscensing requirement is to carry. I believe CA is the same way unlike some of the even more repressive People's Republics.

In short you may want to add a "legal" question stating what is required to shoot at a range (FID, no FID, etc).