Creating a Go Poster to attract students at my school

I want to make a Go poster to attract students at my school to get into the game,any advice on what to put on the poster(like a picture,some reasons on why should we play go and etc). any advices are appreciated.

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This infographic looks very nice IMO:

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It may depend on the profile of potential students.

Did you check with your go federation ? They are here to help.

I would put a picture of a board at end game, so they can see the territories clearly, and I’d say something like “Learn the world’s oldest board game!”

Swiss federation had very nice minimalistic go posters. Almost no words.
You can use goworld covers, and there is an art & go topic here.

https://forums.online-go.com/t/art-go/30821

5r8tlm

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I absolutely love it,I might use that poster, looks great, thank you!!!

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how do I get in contact with them?

I don’t know where you are, but most have a website and contact (email).

If your country don’t have a federation you can contact directly the world amateur go federation.

There are some sublevels too like the EGF (European Go Federation), AGA (American Go Association) …

All these organization have promoting go as one of their main objective and should be enthusiastic to meet you (and help you).

They sometime have a budget for new opening of a club, they can have a bunch of promoting materials like posters, flyers, videos… Even go sets, books, demo board.
And they surely should have good advices to offer.
Maybe you can organize a presentation of the game (with a short video for ex) followed by games on 9x9 at a fixed date?

You probably need to update the line in this poster about “Till today no computer program can win a professional Go player” though.

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Dear @gennan - thanks for sharing :slight_smile: But I do not like the Go academy poster :face_with_raised_eyebrow: It’s too detailed, has too many words, is not an immediately eye catching design, and it’s not even immediately obvious that it’s about Go (even to an experienced player). JMHO. :man_shrugging:

I much prefer something more minimal, along the lines of @Atorrante 's contribution. As another example, here is the poster I made for our Go club:

However, I have found from experience that posters are not a very effective way of attracting new members. Most effective is contacting people directly, e.g. friends 1:1, peers through a presentation or a stand at a fair, etc. so they can see or, even better, play the game. Next most important, in my experience, is to play somewhere visible (e.g. library, café, park, etc.) so people see you playing, get curious, and come over to ask, “What’s this game?” And lastly, make sure you have easily found, up-to-date information online so that experienced players in your area who want to find a local club can do so. We have gotten lots of new members from the above methods, and none from posters despite having lots of posters up in the area.

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So my favorite suggestion to bring with you a goban in a university cafeteria.

Completely agree.

Posters and flyers can still have impact but in my opinion not directly, more in some long term perspective and only with a large coverage. Like a print from the past in a collective memory.

Or maybe in a place where people are bored or have time to read (waiting room, office for job, library…)
Note on flyers: better be of good quality. Thick semirigid A4 folded in 3 with the rule inside for ex . Like that ppl may have more motivation to bring it home and keep it.

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I don’t know how effective posters might be, I have never used them.

We did play in public places with our club (like a café) and people did come over to ask what it is we’re playing. But none of them stuck around for more than about 5 minutes (the time it more or less takes to answer their question). Their curiousity would be satisfied by that short explanation. IME it’s quite difficult to get random passers-by to sit down with you to learn more about the game and play.

The only people that came to play in our club for a longer period, were people who learned about the game somewhere and were curious enough to look for a club in their area, or people who were already go players elsewhere and recently moved to our area.

Now, with children it is very different IME. When we play on a few picknick tables in the schoolyard during lunch time (invited by the school), a lot of children come and want to know what it is. It doesn’t take any effort at all to get them to play with their friends.

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We’ve had two new members this way. One said “OMG! Is that Go? I haven’t played that since I was a little kid.” They then started coming to club sessions after that. The other had heard of Go but didn’t know how to play. They came and joined our session for 2 hours, learned the rules, played some games. That was only last week so let’s wait to see if they come back :grin:

Maybe this method is easier on a university campus than a general public place, but really I’m just speculating.

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I got very quickly like 3 students. Very enthusiastic, fixed rv same place (cafet uni in Lyon (FR)).
Later they brought themselves more ppl. Some became friends, came to my home.
But most difficulty was to bring them to the club strangely. They had a weird idea of what is a club like private society you have to pay, rituals maybe too. …
Maybe for the club side we could have kept that cafeteria with a more regular meeting date, i guess it was just not very convenient for me.

When i was student in Bielefeld (D) the go club met at the main cafeteria. my regulars friends were F.J. Dickhut, Jan Shroer for the strongest ones. There i reached to bring a second life by attracting a bunch of Korean students. And a Chinese 3d. He was funny because i met him always bypassing in the corridor, he never had time but we each time just played a game or two.

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Maybe we should borrow lessons from history. At the end of the Edo period when the Great Houses were diminishing, there is a period where common people don’t know about it, and the upper class either move pass it or just play with themselves.

One thing interesting when reading the records from a writer living at the time, he described he saw many Go “stands” in Toyko, even in the village outside the city where he lived. His account was that an old man sitting in front of the stand with a Go board with a sign said anyone is welcome to challenge him. The sign said the old man is a shodan player (basically at the time meant like a pro), and you can challenge from 9 handicaps, and it’s free. The writer won 3 in a roll with 9 handi, and moved up to 8 handi, still won 3 out of 3, and the old man paid him. And then they moved to 7 handicaps, and the writer lost one, and now he got to paid back. Until they reached 5 handicaps, the writer lost all the challenge. And the old man welcomed him to join his Go class and became his student.

From the more formal side, organization like Hoensha using publication with newspapers and magazines to not just showing the games they played but also commentaries quite vivid describing the progress (it’s like the youtube videos and streaming games). I guess people did come up with similar solution regardless of the time.

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I like your poster too!! might also use yours for an example, thanks for sharing!!

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for now we host our club meetings at a food court, some people would stop by and some are interested in the game, but the reason why I want to put up posters is because there will be more people that walk around in the campus, apartment buildings and etc ,i feel like if I can make a solid poster,i am able to attract some groups of people.sigh,it’s a pain when you are a go player and you can find no one to play with. let’s see how things will go

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Welcome to the eternal struggle :laughing:

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