Posters for a memorial service

[ForeverAndEverCheese]

a dear friend has died and I have offered to do some photo collages for the celebration of life (no funeral).

PLease can you help?

1. any recommendations of a good site for printing posters?
2. poster or canvas? Or is there something in between?
3. I have about 100 photos. Do you think 5 posters would ve too many?
4. any suggested sizes? If will be in a community centre.
5. any thoughts re format etc.

I really want to do my friend’s incredible life justice so any help gratefully received.

thank you

Hi,
Sorry for the loss of your friend. It is a lovely idea to create a photo gallery of your friends life.

Posters would be a good way to present the photos and could be rolled up and stored in a poster tube afterwards. 5 or so canvases would need to be stored after the memorial or perhaps gifted to friends and family.

If you have 100 photos, do they start with chilfhood through to adult life or are they more recent? Think about how you will categories the pictures by age or theme then sort them into groups.

I personally would get the photos printed and create collages in poster frames. Ikea has a fantastic selection and they are lightweight enough to carry as they have acrylic not glass in them. I have used their poster sized ones and they are good quality.

I'd display notes, quotes, memories or song lyrics alongside the photos on the poster or in the frames to capture more of your friend's life. If you have Canva, you can design and print these yourself. It would create a scrapbook effect in each frame rather than a photo gallery, if that is something you would like. If not, a life in pictures will be beautiful and people will share their memories when they look at the photos. 🩷

Sorry for your loss.

As it's a community centre find out if things are allowed to be put on walls before you do anything else, as that will impact how you decide to display. One of my uncles (not in the UK) had a couple of boards on easels at his funeral which if you can't attach things to the walls would work.

We didn't have posters for funerals I've been involved with arranging, but used Devine stationary for booklets etc and found them to be good quality (& well priced). I see they also do funeral memory boards (like my uncle had) and they have some ideas on what to put on them and some templates.
https://devinefuneralstationery.uk/funeral-memory-boards

For uploading pictures the better quality you have the better. (I can't remember what file format we used - I'll have to try and look it up - but I think it was either png or tiff).

We scanned a load of photos and cropped where necessary to create head and shoulders portraits. Then did a montage from oldest photo to most recent. We did all the photo editing in Photoshop.

We designed the booklet layout ourselves using Devine's software, but for extra cost they'll do it. If you've ever used any sort of editing package it's quite easy (and if you haven't they have instruction videos). I would think it's the same software for the boards.

(I know I sound like an ad for them, but they were significantly cheaper than the printers recommended by the funeral director and we were able to use more photos in the booklets.)

Good luck.

Thank you, @MagnoliaTreeBlossomThe photos represent his life across the decades so my plan was roughly to go chronologically, although only roughly as I’m not quite sure of dates.

Do you think around 10-12 photos per poster size print would enable the snaps to be seen well enough? Many of them are pretty old so won’t survive blowing up too much as the quality isn’t high enough.

I think his wife is doing a scrapbook, including the many letters they’ve received. When I chatted to her, we were worried everyone would end up crammed around a single station, hence the idea of doing a collage of other pictures just to give people more to look at.

I’m doubting and redoubting myself. It feels so important

As people will be up close when they are looking at the posters at stations even the older photos will be easily seen. I wouldn't enlarge those ones as the charm of older photos is the moments they captured. They will be perfect in their original size.

A loose chronological photo gallery across the decades will create flow between each poster. As your friend's wife is making a scrapbook, photos only on the posters is a good choice. If you're planning A2 posters up to 12 6x4 photos would fit. Fewer if you enlarge some.

There are many online places that specialise in posters including memorial ones, if you search for these you'll see different styles and layouts.