Please help a non-designer

[sahnert]

The templates in Pages '08 are great for me, but once I have added my own info, I feel like it doesn't look as good as the original template.

Can you give me suggestions to "fix" my design and make it look a bit more professional? Thanks



Brief background for those who care:
I am a musician just starting out as a self-employed professional. In addition to gigging, I am teaching lessons at various locations. One location is a private school where I need to advertise to the high school students via a poster or flyer or something. I figured this poster template would work great and be easy and cheap...

 

[Abraxsis]

Well, I like the overall look of the flyer, but I do have a few suggestions. 1. the piano, while eyecatching, seems to weigh down the right side of the design with it's dark colors and image size. I recommend changing the PIANO LESSONS to black to help pull the design back into balance. Not to mention make it easier to see from afar. 2. The piano lessons font is a bit lackluster at best. Id find something a bit more "chunky" that maintains the overall professional look of the design. The chunkier font will also aid in balancing the piece.

Hope it helps.

The templates in Pages '08 are great for me, but once I have added my own info, I feel like it doesn't look as good as the original template.

Can you give me suggestions to "fix" my design and make it look a bit more professional? Thanks



Brief background for those who care:
I am a musician just starting out as a self-employed professional. In addition to gigging, I am teaching lessons at various locations. One location is a private school where I need to advertise to the high school students via a poster or flyer or something. I figured this poster template would work great and be easy and cheap...

 

[sahnert]

Thanks for the suggestions. Here is a new version.
I applied your suggestions and changed a few other details. I like it a lot better, but maybe it could still use some tweaking.

 

[klymr]

Looks a lot better in round 2. I like what you did with the box around the when/where, however, I am personally not a fan of the whole when: where: thing. That's just my personal opinion, so I hope I'm not offending in any way. I'd rather see it say "Tuesdays and Thursdays afternoons at the Davenport Home."

Overall, I think it's looking great! Good job so far.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Aligning some page elements always helps with tightening things up. Pull the left-hand ends of the dotted rules so they line up with the other elements in the left-hand margin. Nice work though.

 

[klymr]

Aligning some page elements always helps with tightening things up. Pull the left-hand ends of the dotted rules so they line up with the other elements in the left-hand margin. Nice work though.

While on the subject of the dotted lines, if possible, move the right hand side so they don't quite reach the side of the piano.

 

[tominated]

i'd try a font like hoefler text for the title, in bold of course.

 

[Sean Dempsey]

I think that looks pretty good actually. Too professional and you might scare people away. I really don't see anything I hate about your original.

 

[decksnap]

The original looks better than the updated version. The new box competes with the boxiness of the headshot, and the black title takes out all the subtlety. I like making the 'visit Seth's site' colored though. Just watch for bad line breaks.

 

[faustfire]

What if you drop the opacity on the piano, make it a little more subtle. Or even better, retrace the piano and give it a simpler, more illustrated look.