Write the brief
Wanted poster ideas: the name, the crime, the reward
Every poster on this site is three lines of text over one photograph. Get those three lines right and the design cannot fail. This page is about writing them. If you would rather look at finished examples first, the gallery of fifty-plus concepts is sorted by personality type.
Line one: the name
Use the name people actually call them, not the one on their passport. “Big Dave” outperforms “David Thompson” every time, because the poster is a document written by the people who know them. Nicknames also fix a layout problem: short names set large and fill the width of the sheet the way a real reward bill does.
Two exceptions. Formal names work for retirement posters, where the joke is the contrast between a serious name and a ridiculous crime. And for couples, two first names joined by “&” reads better than a surname.
Line two: the crime, six ways to write it
The crime is the whole gift. Below are six patterns that keep working, with a sample line you can adapt in under a minute. Read them as templates, not as jokes to copy word for word: the version with their actual details in it will always be funnier than anything written by a stranger.
The specific one
“Wanted for reheating fish in the third-floor microwave”
Specific beats clever. A detail only five people know is worth more than a joke everyone has heard.
The affectionate one
“Wanted for making everyone feel like the favourite”
No sting at all. This is the version people actually frame and keep visible.
The role reversal
“Wanted for bossing around a man twice her size”
Small person, big authority. The contrast does the comedy for you.
The confession
“Wanted for still not knowing how the printer works”
Self-deprecating crimes work when the poster is for the whole team to read.
The long-running joke
“Wanted for saying “five minutes away” since 2019”
If the group has repeated it for years, it has already been tested on an audience.
The tribute
“Wanted for thirty years of the same terrible jokes”
Retirements and big birthdays. Warmth first, punchline second.
Line three: the reward sets the tone
The number at the bottom of the sheet quietly decides how the whole thing reads. It is the punchline most people skip, and the easiest one to get right.
| Reward | What it signals |
|---|---|
| $50 | Petty. Use it when the crime is small and the joke is the smallness itself. |
| $500 | The safe middle. Believable enough to look like a real bill. |
| $10,000 | Flattery. Says the person is worth a fortune without saying it. |
| $1,000,000 | Pure cartoon. Works for kids, teams and anyone who enjoys being ridiculous. |
| One (1) beer | The anti-reward. Lands hardest on people who take themselves seriously. |
Choosing the photograph
The poster applies a sepia halftone automatically, which flattens colour and pushes contrast. That treatment loves a clear face and hates a busy background. Head and shoulders, eyes toward the camera, taken in daylight or under a decent lamp: that is the whole requirement. Sunglasses, motion blur and group shots where the target is thirty pixels wide are the three things that ruin an otherwise good idea.
Resolution matters more as the sheet gets bigger. A phone photo is plenty for a desk-sized print; for anything above A3, start from the largest original you have. The relationship between file size and print size is broken down in the sizes and formats guide.
Test it before you commit
You do not have to guess. Open the editor, drop the photo in and type your three lines: the poster redraws as you type, so you can try four different crimes in two minutes and keep the one that makes you laugh out loud. The watermarked preview costs nothing and needs no account. Only the clean file costs $4.95.
Still stuck on the concept? Start from an occasion instead of a person on the gift ideas page, or read the three-step making guide if you want the mechanics rather than the writing.
Try your three lines now
Free watermarked preview, no account. When it makes you laugh, the clean 300 DPI file downloads instantly for $4.95.
Write my poster — $4.95