I have designed flyers for my annual Halloween party since 2000. In 2004 I was asked to take over the design of the annual flyer for the Water Skiing Santa event. I have used a variety of tools for this purpose including Photoshop, Word, Paint Shop Pro, and Publisher. Below are samples of my flyers. Click on an image to view it full size.
2007
2006
2005
2004
2003
2002
For all the party invites I have used Halloween clipart found on the web, put it together in Photoshop, then emailed the invitation to my friends as a jpeg. In 2003 I came up with the name HOLLYWEEN and the rest is history....
In 2007 without the constraint of pre-printed paper, I was given the latitude to completely redesign the flyer. I decided to make it "Just the Facts", a call-to-action flyer. In my opinion, past flyers contained too much text making it hard to determine what it was advertising and lacking any kind of "hook" to draw attention to it. Utilizing 2006 photos from a fan, I created the filmstrip with various images of the performers. I used WordArt to create the text and put everything on a diagonal. I wanted it to visible from a distance so the basic information was enlarged. The idea was to point people to the website for additional information. The participants thought this was the best flyer in the 22 years of the event. Based on the flyer, they also decided to turn the website over to me. I added a much need directions/maps page to the site. I will be revamping the site during this year and am planning to have it completed by September 2008.
Also in 2007, one of the new performers was just starting his own business with Lime Box advertising trucks and offered to run an ad for the event for the cost of the enlargement only. I designed this ad to allow it to be used for many years, again pointing people to the website for more information. I was quite excited to see my work on the back of his truck.
In 2005 I received permission to modify some of the content on the existing flyer. I removed some repetitive information and came up with the leadoff line "Tired of Shopping Mall Santas?". Pre-printed paper was being used so the only graphics I had to deal with was making all the sponsor logos fit. Several were of poor quality so I redid them, making the lettering more clean and crisp.
I wanted to acknowledge and say thanks to the owners of the homes that were listed on my Tacky Christmas Lights website when I came up with the idea to present each with a customize certificate of appreciation. The printed versions were not up to par as they were done on an old ink jet printer but I hope to rectify that next year.