Popular in the 1960s, psychedelic lettering can give your poster a retro, funky feel. This style derived from the Art Nouveau style of the 19th century. The font, Pantagruel, is considered to be the perfect bridge between the two styles. To create a psychedelic effect, consider distorting the base of the font, warping or slanting the bottom of the letters to curve around an object or letters in a word below.
The Art Deco era was primarily in the 1920s and '30s. Using an Art Deco font can convey a classy or jazzy sensibility. It can also convey an industrial or robotic aesthetic. Often sans serif, the fonts are clean and modern-looking. Some of these fonts are more decorative than others, featuring added lines or other flourishes. It is not uncommon for art-deco fonts to be all caps. Some resemble Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Posters should emphasize their subject with a minimum 24-point size. Consider that your viewer will be at least 10 to 15 feet away. You should use no more than two fonts in a poster. A sans-serif font such as Arial or Helvetica is preferred to enable reading from afar. The viewer's eye should follow the information easily, with the most important information readily accessible. Try to draw the viewer toward the information with eye-catching, accessible design.
Photoshop and Gimp can help you customize fonts with built-in effects for shadows or other 3-D effects. In Photoshop, you can turn your type into a vector image and manipulate it as you might other images. Using the pen tool, you can manipulate the size and shape of a standard font to reflect your personal vision. Photoshop offers millions of options, including text that looks like a used rubber stamp.