For all of you graphic designers and designer-wannabes out there looking for some poster inspiration, here’s something to get you going. Frank Chimero is a designer who has the simplistic look down pat. His collection of posters bring together different elements of design in such a minimalistic yet effective way that it evokes a rather overwhelming feeling of jealousy. Here’s a closer look at why his simple poster designs are so successful and inspirational:

A thought-provoking message - When browsing through Chimero’s collection, you can’t help but notice that each poster contains a thoughtful, interesting, humorous, or just plain truthful message. The messages seem to be one of the keys to Chimero’s effective simplicity. His poster design collection contains some interesting and funny commentaries on being a designer and the design process, such as his “Little Ideas become Big; Big Ideas become Little” poster. Or check out his more edgy poster stating, “People ignore design that ignores people” (the edgy part is the illustration of a finger flipping off an icon of an eye).

Simple but effective colors - Frank Chimero uses lots of black and white in his poster printing designs merely because it goes with many of his messages, such as his Creative Profession poster that ironically lacks creativity…or does it? Yet, his posters that incorporate color keep it simple and relevant. His Productivity poster, in which each letter of the text is on a separate icon of dogeared paper, includes corporate colors - brown, muted green, and a gray-blue of sorts. But the main words of his message, productivity and passion, are in brown, the most noticeable color in the design.

Simple yet interesting illustrations - Mirrored images, creative use of typography, and edgy clip art are just a few of Chimero’s styles for illustrations. Each illustration blends impeccably well with the message, as in the poster Human Being in which a handprint rests beneath a striking message about reminding ourselves to be human. His Simplicity poster contains only a small black box with white text that reads, “Simplicity Requires Courage.” Hmmm…can we say, pure and simple?

Browsing through Frank Chimero’s poster collection may have a tendency to make any designer a bit green with envy, as Chimero so aptly puts it in his Design Envy poster, “Good design is all about making other designers feel like idiots because that design wasn’t theirs.” Yet use this feeling of, um, idiocy to motivate you to reach greater heights with your designs. And like Chimero says in his Making Design poster, “Remember! Looking at design is not creating design.” So stop stalling and start creating.