Two Sides, One Centreline
A match-up poster for anything with two sides — built so the layout does not quietly pick a winner before the contest starts. Six fields.
Two runs of the same template. A build-off final beside a rowing final — one indoors under dark screens, one outdoors at first light. The second pair is the harder test: North Quay against Old Harbour Crew is a six-character name against a sixteen-character one, and the tabs still come out the same width, with the shorter name simply given more room around it.
Generated from this template with the fields shown above — tabs of identical width, the divider on the page's true centre, a plain INFO square where a scan code would go, and an auditorium behind it with every screen dark. The reference's baseline picked a winner in its layout: the longer team name stretched its own tab, crowded its text against the divider, and pushed the whole bar off centre, so one side had visibly more ground before the contest began. It also drew a realistic scannable code encoding nothing, and used a photograph whose venue screens carried their own malformed text competing with the poster's. The second run taught me something about how these rules have to be written. The template already stated the constraint plainly — both tabs identical, the shorter name given more empty space — and the first attempt read it and still sized each tab to its own text, because that is simply what laying out two labels does. Restating it as a construction order rather than a constraint fixed it: draw one tab and mirror it. Measured, the corrected run puts both tabs at exactly the same width and the divider half a pixel off the page centre.
Generated for this library
Input
Contest the final of Vibary's build-off
Sides Team Describe · Team Draw
Title SAY IT / BUILD IT
When Saturday 14 March · 19:00
Scene a full auditorium seen from the back, every screen
dark or far out of focus
Colour deep indigo with warm brass
Returned 1 poster · 2:3 · tinted scene, brass ceremony
bar two tabs of identical width and identical type size,
the longer name set slightly smaller to fit its tab
rather than allowed to stretch it
centre the brass divider sitting on the poster's true vertical
centreline, not pushed off it by the longer name
title two lines of heavy white caps, aligned to each other,
filling the upper third
scene auditorium behind a deep indigo wash, no readable text
anywhere in the photograph
footer a solid band, a plain outlined placeholder square, and
two short lines beneath itYou fill in 6 fields — the braced lines at the top. Everything below them is fixed.
- 1The contest
- 2The two sides
- 3The title, two lines
- 4When
- 5The scene behind
- 6The colour
Two Sides, One Centreline
Produce ONE image, 2:3 portrait: a match-up poster announcing two named sides meeting. Follow every line. Replace only the FIELDS block; everything after it is fixed.
First — do you have the fields?
If any field below still has braces around it, stop and ask. Put all the questions in one short message, and show the example under each one so they can see the shape of a useful answer. Wait for the replies, then draw. Never fill a brace yourself: a value you invented is a value nobody asked for, and it will look exactly as considered as the ones they did give you.
Ask in whatever language they are writing to you in. Translate the questions and the examples; do not make someone read English to tell you what they want.
The examples are only examples. If someone answers a question, use their answer; never fall back to the example because you prefer it.
If the fields are already filled in, ignore this and carry on.
Fields — replace these six lines only
- The contest: {what is being decided} e.g. the final of Vibary's build-off
- The two sides: {name, and name} e.g. Team Describe · Team Draw
- The title, two lines: {two short lines} e.g. SAY IT / BUILD IT
- When: {a date and a time} e.g. Saturday 14 March · 19:00
- The scene behind: {a photograph, with no readable text in it} e.g. a full auditorium seen from the back, every screen dark or far out of focus
- The colour: {one theme colour, and one metal} e.g. deep indigo with warm brass
The balance law
A match-up poster has one job before it has any other: treat both sides the same. The moment one side gets more room, the poster has picked a winner, and everybody reads that before they read the names.
- Build the bar by drawing one tab and mirroring it. Do not lay out two tabs independently and let each size itself to its text — that is the whole failure, and it happens automatically unless the bar is built as one mirrored pair.
- The two tabs are identical in width. Set both to whatever the longer name needs, and give the shorter name the same tab with more space inside it. A tab that grows to fit its text is the failure. Measure them against each other before finishing: if one is wider by any visible amount, the poster is wrong even if it looks fine.
- The two names are the same type size and the same weight. If the longer name does not fit at that size, both names come down a step together. Never one and not the other.
- The divider sits on the poster's true vertical centreline — the middle of the page, not the middle of the bar. A longer name on one side must not push it across.
- The geometry mirrors: whatever shape the left tab is, the right tab is its reflection.
Test it by folding. Picture the sheet creased down its vertical middle. The two tabs should land exactly on each other and the divider should land on the crease. A reference run of this style failed all three points at once — the longer team name stretched its own tab, crowded its text against the divider, and shifted the whole bar off centre.
No working-looking codes
If a scan code appears, it is a plain outlined square with a short word inside it, obviously a placeholder.
Never draw a realistic scannable pattern. A code that looks like it works and encodes nothing is a functional lie printed on a poster, and the fact that it looks convincing is exactly what makes it one.
The scene
A photograph filling the frame, under a heavy wash of the theme colour — dark enough that white type sits on it cleanly.
No readable text inside the photograph. Screens, banners, scoreboards and signage must be dark, turned away, or far out of focus. Any text a scene supplies is invented, usually malformed, and competes with the poster's own words.
The layout, top to bottom
- A small metal emblem at the top centre — a cup, a wreath, a simple mark. One only.
- Fine corner rules in the metal colour at the two upper corners, matching each other.
- The title: two lines of very heavy white caps, aligned left edge to left edge and right edge to right edge with each other, filling the upper third.
- The match-up bar, as specified above.
- The date, then the time, centred, on two lines — the date in the metal colour at normal weight, the time in white and heavier.
- The footer band in solid theme colour: the placeholder square centred, one line of instruction beneath it, and one smaller line of attribution beneath that.
Colour
One theme colour and one metal. The metal carries a soft gradient along its length and nothing else. White for the loudest type, the metal for the second level, nothing for a third.
Never
- ✕ tabs of different widths, or names at different sizes
- ✕ a divider anywhere but the page's vertical centre
- ✕ a realistic or scannable-looking code
- ✕ legible text inside the background photograph
- ✕ a second metal, or a third colour
- ✕ a glow, bevel or drop shadow on the type
The result
A poster with real ceremony in it that has not, in its own layout, already announced the result: two sides given exactly the same ground, meeting on the centre of the page.
The whole template, in one piece. The steps below are the entire workflow.
How to use it
- Copy the whole template with the button above.
- Replace the six FIELDS lines. Deliberately check the two names against each other — if they differ a lot in length, the template will hold the tabs equal and shrink the longer name to fit, which is the correct trade.
- Paste it into any image-capable agent or model, in one message. One run returns the poster.
- Check it by folding: picture the poster creased down its vertical middle. The two tabs should land on each other, and the divider should land on the crease. If it does not, one side is winning the layout.
What you swap
- The contest
- the final of Vibary's build-off
- The two sides
- Team Describe · Team Draw
- The title, two lines
- SAY IT / BUILD IT
- When
- Saturday 14 March · 19:00
- The scene behind
- a full auditorium seen from the back, every screen dark or far out of focus
- The colour
- deep indigo with warm brass
Before it runs
- Two sides with names you are willing to set at the same size. If one has to be smaller to fit, the poster is telling the reader something you did not mean.
- A scene with no readable signage in it. Screens, banners and scoreboards in the photograph become a second, invented text layer.
- One theme colour and one metal. Two metals turn ceremony into clutter.
When to reach for it
When two named sides meet: a final, a debate, a head-to-head, a launch framed as a challenge. Templates in this style describe the VS bar in detail and never say the two halves must weigh the same, so the side with the longer name gets the bigger tab and the poster has already decided.
What changes
- One ceremonial poster: a tinted photographic scene, a heavy two-line title, a centred match-up bar, the date, and a footer band.
- The two sides are held to equal width, equal type size and mirrored geometry, so folding the poster down its middle would put one tab exactly on the other.
- The divider sits on the poster's true vertical centreline rather than wherever the longer name pushes it.
- No fake scannable code — a poster that shows a working-looking QR that encodes nothing is a lie you can hold in your hand.
- The background scene is chosen to carry no legible text of its own, so the poster has one text layer instead of two.
Pairs with
- Bolted to the SkyA mascot built as real signage — a face on a plate, one wider name plate under it, and visible hardware holding both to the pole. Six fields.
- Cut, Not FilledA copperplate-engraved city poster in one ink — where every tone is line density, nothing on the page is a flat fill, and the bare paper is a shape rather than a margin. Six fields.
- Every Bar Is a MultipleA barcode poster in two colours — with the code built on a base module, guard bars and a numeral row, so it reads as a scanned object rather than a stripe field. Five fields.