Artists' Union poster with Inkscape

Inkscape interface

Finished poster

Once we open a new file, as Inkscape creates documents with a transparent background by default, we can open preferences (File>Document preferences) and change the colour of the background, size, as well as add&modify guides & grid, select license for our work, etc.

For this poster we are using Symbols. You can access them by clicking on Objects in the main menu and select Symbols palette form drop-down menu.

Symbols can be modified if you select them and then go to Object>Group. This allows you to change colour and style of stroke (the outline line) and colour of the fill.

When we choose symbols that work for the message our poster needs to convey, we can move them around by using Select tool (top-left in vertical left hand side menu), this tool also enables scaling (changing the size). There is also a very useful set of alignment tools accessible through Object>Align & distribute (bottom of drop down menu).

Once you’ve arranged your symbols, you can change the colour by clicking on individual symbol and convert symbol to group to edit if you have not done it already and then right click at the bottom left boxes called fill & Stroke to edit. This will open a property box on the right-hand side where you’ll be able to make changes.

To change size, place or angle of all elements together, either Shift+click on one by one until you select all or, click and drag around the objects to select them.

Now we add text. The tool can be found in the left-hand side toolbox, icon A. Once you select the Text tool, you can click anywhere within the document area and start typing. Otherwise you can click and drag rectangular shape representing an text box if your text is more of a paragraph than one line such as a title.

Whilst still with selected Text tool, you can change font type, font family, size of the font as well as chose text alignment, line space and space between letters.

Lastly, when happy with the whole composition, you can also change font fill & stroke colour by selecting it and repeating colour editing via Fill & Stoke (bottom-left) right click.

That's it. Now you can either save the file in Inkscape native SVG, save a copy as a PDF file or export it in a range of bitmap formats, with PNG by default.