Great posters have a way of stopping people in their tracks—whether they’re pinned up in a coffee shop, hanging in a storefront, or framed on a living room wall. Collectors discover their next favorite print while perusing through local art events or flipping through racks in boutique shops. Others spend hours browsing online print shops, hunting for something unique.
For creative entrepreneurs, selling posters online or IRL is a chance to turn original ideas into products people love. Whether you’re sketching in Procreate, refining designs in Adobe Illustrator, building layouts in Canva, or experimenting with AI design tools, you have endless ways to bring your poster ideas to life.
Read on to dig into the tips that actually move prints—with perspectives from the founder of Secret Planet, whose space-themed prints have built a faithful following. You’ll also hear from Banquet Workshop’s co-creators, who’ve mastered the art of dreaming up poster designs that fly off the shelves.
Tips for designing and selling posters online
- Discover your niche
- Get idea inspiration from your interests
- Find reliable partners
- Set realistic pricing
- Use Instagram for storytelling
- Blog about your business
You’ll need more than just artistic inclinations or a curatorial eye to build a successful poster business. This means thinking through your target market, finding reliable production partners, and brainstorming marketing strategies to help you differentiate from other art merchants:
Discover your niche
The poster market is competitive, with prints available from both individual shops and marketplaces (for example, Etsy). You’ll need a unique angle to stand out. Start by researching what’s already available and identifying gaps you could fill. Look at successful poster sellers to understand what niches are saturated versus underserved. Then, consider which underserved niches have broad enough appeal to sustain a business.
This balance between niche personal interests and commercial appeal is something Sarah Edmonds and Tammy Lawrence, co-founders of Banquet Workshop, understand well. “It’s always about finding a balance between making things that are incredibly personal, with what we are feeling in the zeitgeist,” Sarah and Tammy tell Shopify via email.
Jackie Lee, of Secret Planet, suggests thorough research before diving in. “Do your market research and find a unique niche that you can fill with the art you make,” she says. “The market is so saturated right now for illustrators and other creatives.”
Get idea inspiration from your interests
Your personal experiences, hobbies, and surroundings are goldmines for poster ideas. Keep a sketchbook, notes app, or Procreate file where you jot down interesting visuals, color combinations, or concepts you dream up. Draw from your travels, the books you read, movies you watch, and even your family life for subject matter that resonates with you personally. The goal is work that feels genuine rather than manufactured.
“I watch a lot of movies and I travel a lot. I am mostly inspired by the things I see when I engage in those hobbies,” says Jackie. “I love to visit art museums in other countries to surround myself with art and design history. I carry a traveler’s sketchbook and am always making notes and scribbles when I’m on the go. When it’s time to sit down and make a poster, I look back at these doodles as starting points.”
Similarly, the founders of Banquet Workshop found inspiration in what their children were exploring.
“In the beginning, it was often about what our kids were looking at, and as a way to share our love for the wild and beautiful province we call home,” they say. “Our Sea Animals of the Pacific Northwest poster is a great example of this, where we took some of the vintage science and nature books we loved and translated them into a modern and graphic art print.”
Find reliable partners
Building relationships with quality printers will help your brand maintain consistent product quality and reasonable turnaround times. Start by researching local print shops and asking for samples of their work before committing to large orders. Look for printers who specialize in the type of printing you need (screen printing, digital, offset) and who are willing to work with small businesses. Don’t just focus solely on price—consider their expertise, communication style, and ability to meet deadlines consistently.
Banquet Workshop found partner success by working with printers who became mentors.
“We’ve been very lucky. All of our printers are incredibly talented and passionate about what they do,” they say. “The very first printer we worked with learned his craft printing maps for the military, and he and his partner really helped to mentor us in an industry we knew very little about.”
Set realistic pricing
Pricing artwork requires balancing your costs, time investment, and market rates to ensure profitability. Calculate your base costs, including materials, printing, packaging, and shipping, then add your labor time at a fair hourly rate. Research what similar artists charge for comparable work so you’re competitive but not undervaluing yourself. Factor in the time spent on concept development and revisions, not just the final execution time.
“Pricing is always tricky, especially in a creative field where it’s hard to quantify exactly how much an artist’s time is worth,” says Jackie. “I always look to my peers or at what others are selling their work for as a starting point. Then I take that number and see if it needs to be adjusted.”
Questions Jackie asks herself when considering how to price her work include:
- How much time did it take me to draw?
- How long did it take me to print?
- How much did packaging cost?
- How much would I pay for a similar piece?
Use Instagram for storytelling
Instagram is a platform to share not just your finished products but the story behind your brand and creative process. Post behind-the-scenes content of your workspace, design process, and inspiration sources. Use Stories and Reels to experiment with different content formats, too. Consistency in posting and engaging with comments helps build a community around your brand.
“We are lucky enough to have started our business before Instagram became so dependent on the algorithm, and were able to amass a lot of followers posting whatever we were excited about without too much strategizing,” say Sarah and Tammy. “Today, it plays a large role in our marketing, and is still the best place for us to launch new products and highlight our retailers. We love the opportunities that Reels and Stories give us to be more creative and try different things.”
Blog about your business
Starting a blog gives you space to tell deeper stories about your work that social media posts can’t accommodate. Write about your design process, the inspiration behind specific pieces, or the challenges you’ve overcome as a creative entrepreneur. This content gives potential customers insight into your personality and brand values.
The Banquet Workshop team uses their blog to share stories about everything from interesting plants to books they’re reading to music they’re discovering, creating a fuller picture of their brand beyond just their products.
“It’s not only another avenue to promote our products, but also to talk about the backstory and creative process,” they say. “As for marketing, it’s also a great way to lock in SEO and be discovered in more random ways.”
9 poster ideas that sell in 2025
- Space prints
- Nature and plant prints
- Vintage prints
- City prints
- Quote and lettering prints
- Photography prints
- Comic-style prints
- Abstract prints
- Fine art prints
The trick isn’t finding a completely untapped market—it’s taking proven themes and taking them somewhere unexpected. These poster categories are likely familiar, but each one opens up into its own creative space waiting for your distinctive perspective:
1. Space prints
Space-themed art taps into our captivation with the unknown and the beauty of uncharted galaxies. For illustrators and artists alike, this niche offers many creative possibilities—from dreamy galaxy scenes to sci-fi illustrations—along with a built-in audience of stargazers and science geeks. You could design a night sky print with interstellar clouds or a retro-futuristic poster of Mars that brings out viewers’ sense of wonder. Many NASA images are available for commercial use, so you can take inspiration from real nebulae and star clusters.
For example, this retro-inspired space-themed poster by Secret Planet depicts Saturn as a dreamy travel destination. It works by sparking wonder, using vintage travel-poster style and rich screen-printed colors.
2. Nature and plant prints
A touch of greenery on your wall can instantly make a space calmer and more alive. This category offers endless options for creators—whether it’s detailed botanical studies, serene landscape scenes, or vibrant jungle designs bursting with lush foliage.
This print by Patrick Hunter shows a majestic moose wading in midnight waters beneath a full moon, rendered in the Woodlands art style, reflecting the artist’s Ojibwe heritage. It brings the calm of Canada’s wilderness indoors while celebrating an Indigenous artistic perspective.
In this botanical artwork, Australian artist Sarah Migliaccio portrays blooming pink eucalyptus flowers glistening after a heavy rain. Its lush detail and magenta tones instantly enliven a room.
3. Vintage prints
Consumers love retro posters because they add character and evoke bygone eras. One poster might mimic a 1950s travel ad while another could resemble a retro movie flyer complete with distressed edges and fonts from that era. Artists can capture this vibe by emulating classic printing techniques, using muted or faded color palettes, and choosing typography that’s straight out of a different decade.
This vintage offset lithograph by Ken Danby, curated and sold by Poster Child Prints, features a bold graphic design from the late 1970s, combining typographic and geometric elements emblematic of that era’s aesthetic.
Also curated by Poster Child Prints, this vintage botanical book plate illustrates the wild carrot (Queen Anne’s lace) through finely detailed drawings of its flowers and seed heads at different stages.
4. City prints
Urban wall art appeals to people by celebrating the places they love or long to visit, from hometown landmarks to far-off destinations. Artists might illustrate iconic landmarks, busy street scenes, or dramatic skyscraper silhouettes to convey a city’s personality.
This city poster from Secret Planet depicts a space capsule speeding past Mexico City landmarks, all in a stylized mid-century travel poster design. It blends city pride with futuristic motorsport flair with the bold colors, vintage typography, and local references that transport racing fans to an imagined future in Mexico City.
Designed by Banquet Workshop, this whimsical print welcomes viewers to Vancouver with an array of the region’s charming icons—whales, hummingbirds, apples, and other Pacific Northwest flora and fauna scattered playfully around its lettering.
“We created this specifically to celebrate our city and for tourists coming to Granville Island,” say Sarah and Tammy.
Alt text: Colorful illustrated poster of Vancouver with city icons and landmarks on pink background
Caption: Source: Banquet Workshop
5. Quote and lettering prints
Creators can play with typography and layout in this category. One poster might feature an inspirational phrase in elegant script on a minimalist background. Another may present a funny saying in bold, colorful letters that jump off the paper.
This poster from The Poster List uses distressed orange typography overlaid on a Brooklyn Bridge silhouette.
Jack Greer’s hand-pulled silkscreen, curated by Poster Child Prints, lends pure pop-art energy to a simple quote, with overlapping shades of hot pink, electric blue, and yellow creating a visual punch.
6. Photography prints
Photography prints draw people in with real moments, whether it’s a sweeping landscape or a candid street scene. When working with photos, you can experiment with dramatic black-and-white contrasts or rich, saturated colors to set just the right mood. Always use high-resolution images and quality printing materials—you want the final print to feel like a window into the world, not a pixelated snapshot.
This Poster List print captures peak California nostalgia with this sun-bleached scene—a powder blue vintage wagon parked in front of mid-century homes, complete with iconic palm trees stretching into the sky.
7. Comic-style prints
Comic-style prints have a special charm—they’re colorful, playful, and tap into our nostalgia for beloved cartoons. They bring a bit of on-screen magic into the real world, making them perfect for anyone who wants their wall art to reflect a love of animation.
Maria Qamar (Hatecopy) delivers a vibrant pop-art illustration of a South Asian aunty character, drawn in her signature comic-book meets Bollywood style, with bold lines, dots, and saturated colors. It simultaneously taps into nostalgic cartoon aesthetics and cultural humor.
8. Abstract prints
The beauty of abstract art is that each viewer finds their own meaning in the shapes and colors. Many people choose abstract art to add a splash of color or a modern touch to a room without being tied to a specific subject. This style offers a lot of freedom to experiment. You might paint a geometric pattern or a soothing watercolor wash and offer it as a large-format print.
Illustrated by Cat Seto of Ferme à Papier, “Cosmic Jade” is an abstract art print swirling with organic circular forms. Marbled shades of teal are reminiscent of a jade stone or planetary cross-section.
Similarly, Tracie Andrews’ print Thia features an arrangement of irregular, overlapping shapes. The orange, navy blue, and gray shapes are accented by delicate hand-drawn dots and textures for a mid-century modern feel. The minimalist design and harmonious color selections make it an inviting focal point for an interior space.
9. Fine art prints
Fine art posters (think prints of classic paintings or gallery-style contemporary art) bring a touch of museum elegance into the home. For artists, offering fine art prints (either of your own work or curated public domain masterpieces) is a great way to reach a broader audience who can’t afford originals but still want high-quality art.
This striking portrait by Adam Spychala strips contemporary portraiture down to its essentials. Grayscale tones, bold contrast, and that haunting gaze follows you around the room.
Poster ideas FAQ
What is the best topic for poster-making?
The best poster topics come from your own interests and experiences—whether that’s your travels, favorite movies, local wildlife, or cultural references that resonate with you personally. Choose subjects you’re genuinely passionate about; this authenticity will show in your work and help you connect with like-minded customers.
How do I make my poster stand out?
Focus on finding a unique niche or perspective that isn’t already saturated in the market, and develop a distinctive visual style that people can recognize as yours. Pay attention to the technical aspects too—quality printing, thoughtful color choices, and clean design can make your work stand out from amateur-looking alternatives.
What is a simple poster?
A simple poster uses minimal elements—clean typography, a limited color palette, and plenty of white space—to communicate its message clearly without visual clutter. It typically includes just one or two strong visual elements rather than trying to cram multiple ideas into a single design.
