How to Make Your Own "WANTED" Poster

Making an old-west style WANTED poster is a fun way to honor someone, and they make for creative party invitations, decorations, and greeting cards. You can design your own WANTED poster using graphic software and free assets such as fonts and textures, or you can use an online tool like Tuxpi to create a WANTED poster in seconds.

How to Make a WANTED Poster Using Tuxpi

To quickly make a custom WANTED poster using your web browser:

1. Go to Tuxpi.com/photo-effects/wanted-poster in your web browser and select Start Photo Editing.

2. Choose your photo and select Open.

3. Edit the text in the top-left corner, then select Update to change the default wording.

4. To add more text, select Add Text at the top of the page. Any text you add can be dragged and positioned anywhere on the poster.

   You can also adjust the color and size of your poster using the tools at the top of the page.

5. When satisfied, select Save to download your poster, or select Share to post it on social media platforms.

If you choose to save the image, it be downloaded as a JPEG file. You can then import the image into a graphic software program and add more effects if you want.

What Makes a WANTED Poster?

Old west WANTED posters have very specific attributes. If designing your own from scratch, you'll need:

• A paper texture that appears faded, wrinkled, or torn.
• A wood texture background to make the poster appear plastered on the side of a building.
• A "mugshot" photo in black-and-white or sepia tone for an antique look.
• "WANTED" printed in a big, bold slab serif western font across the top of the poster.
• Another font for additional text such as the crime and reward offered.

For example, a WANTED poster could include the following text:

WANTED for Felony Font Abuse

Reward: The satisfaction of aiding in the eradication of bad kerning, font overload, use of Comic Sans, & other crimes against good design.

Free Paper and Wood Textures Online

You could print out your WANTED poster on some tan, brown, or gold parchment-style paper. However, if that's not an option, you can print on regular paper and use one of these free texture images:

• Old Paper by Ayelie-stock (Requires a free deviantART account)
• Old paper by renguerra
• Old paper by andreyutzu

Free Western Fonts

There are a handful of free slab serif fonts that work especially well for WANTED poster text. Other fonts you may already have installed that work well for a western look include Wanted, Playbill, Rockwell, Mesquite, and Ponderosa.

How to Make Mugshots for Wanted Posters

For making your own mug shots, take or find an image of a person and crop it above the shoulders. You can then add elements to the mugshot to give it more pizzazz. For example, put the person behind bars, or add big black-and-white stripes across their clothing. For a birthday-themed poster, add a silly party hat or scatter star-shaped confetti that looks like little Sheriff's badges.