Redundancies In campus-linked media reexamined

It was probably in the first semester itself, that our campus was acquainted with the glorious wonders of the magical invention of modernity that people humbly call Photoshop. And then, to use the slightly clichéd term, we never looked back. Our wonderful, downright competitive, and at times, infamous legacy has since come a long way, yet the basics were always the same.

The Motive: To draw a far greater crowd than would normally come to an event, to woo voters, to impress other associations, and most important, to grab people’s attention.

The Act: Make a poster, tell somebody to make a poster (more like bribe, extort, blackmail, emotional blackmail, or just taking advantage of some people’s inability to say no.), get a poster outsourced, the works.

The Evidence: Millions and millions of posters, of every size, shape and conceivable colour that have at one time graced these very walls that would now look bare without them. Some snatches of the past are still visible in the form of scraps flying around in the gentle breeze, or a vestigial poster or two in some people’s rooms, (of torn edges still stuck on walls, the cellophane tape crinkled and yellow at the edges.)

There is however, no proper justification as to why so much time and money has been and is still being sunk into something that will suffice equally with a notice. Try as we might, subconsciously, even we know that posters aren’t working. There is probably no other reason why people are so vociferously learning Photoshop, why more people go to Patni every day (THE place to be, if you want posters printed), why them posters just seem to get bigger and flashier with time. Indeed the bigger posters are just evidence to point out that the smaller posters just do not seem to do what they are supposed to. How big do they have to get, before we realize, that size just doesn’t matter.

A premise is established, now for justifying it. Posters have to be three things: Attractive, conveying the message properly and clearly representative of what they are meant for. The posters here have gone the same way as the notices. After a certain point, there seemed to be a poster for everything. Soon, reading a poster required the same dull mundaniety that entailed a notice. People stopped bothering.

The proposed solution? Bigger posters. Now we come to the era of the elections, with posters so big they could be seen afar, a beacon of hope in the distant lands of the vote bank people. Again, the archetypal ‘poster wars’ took a turn for the worse after some infamous, or politically (in)correct posters made their way to the arena. But then, media has never been fair, has it?

Finally, the present. Contemporarily, we seem to be seeing a poster for nearly everything, with flex and vinyl posters the order of the day. From cricket leagues to Sudoku competitions, there doesn’t seem to have been a single event whose coming has not been heralded by a great poster upon the mess and CP walls.

But how much of this is really effective? Wouldn’t most of it be sufficed by an ordinary notice, a simple memo inviting interested people to come? Or maybe, the public has become so disinterested that an alternative method of mass communication has to be looked into. Nevertheless, here are the figures.

It takes approximately one day to design a poster, (for someone acquainted with Photoshop).  It takes another, to go to the City to get it printed, costing about a hundred rupees a large flex poster, twenty apiece for the small (once large) A3 ones. Approximately another 200 crispy green ones in the transportation and, of course, feeding the poster-bearer. All this, done in traditional BITSian last minute style, resulting in the fact that when the posters are finally put up, but a scant few hours remain to the launch of above publicized event.

And then they complain of meager audiences.

Our Solution:

In addition to this, the club secretaries and representatives need to be more coherent of their activities, and schedule them in such a manner that they do not clash. The usage of posters needs to be limited by the magnitude of the event, so that the serious one get the proper broadcasting they require. We are not telling you to banish posters; we are telling you to bring it back. After all, digital art looks better on digital media.

So, the next time you think of making a poster for your lost cellphone…..