1. James Bond
Glamorous gowns and sharp dinner jackets go hand in hand with James Bond. Lots of style and class to carry into your designs, along with the casino theme – why not hire a mobile casino company to really make the theme come to life. These companies are used to putting on casinos at big events like weddings, and each guest can get their starter chips either as they arrive, or a voucher when they buy their ticket. No real money is involved, and you can pretend to be Bond or the glamorous spies all night if the fancy takes you!

2. Comic book superheroes
From Superman to Spiderman, so many people have a soft spot for the caped superheroes of the comic books, as all the recent superhero films have shown. Why not paint New York style city blocks at night to put around the venue walls, with occasional heroes hidden amongst them. There are bold, dramatic fonts associated with the comic books that look fantastic on poster and tickets too.

3. Ancient Egypt
Pyramids, hieroglyphics and ancient gods; what a feast for the art students! This theme has a great colour palette, and so much potential for great decorations. You could really go to town and create grand murals like the interiors of the ancient temples, or even make statues to frame the entrance. There is a tonne of inspiration just waiting to be tapped.

4. Pirates
Pirates! Need we say any more? Treasure chests, skull and cross bone flags, Johnny Depp, what’s not to love?!

But seriously, this can be a lot of fun to play with as a prom theme; you can create mini desert islands around the room with fake palm trees. Create a treasure hunt with clues given out during the evening and invest in a king’s ransom of chocolate coins to hide in mini treasure chests around the room.

5. Winter Wonderland
With the event taking pace at the height of summer, the impact of the winter wonderland prom theme can be so dramatic. Use cool blue lighting, make glittering snowflakes and use simple white sugar paper to create the impression of snow covered landscape on the walls. Making fake snowmen in June and July can be surreal and lots of fun, and having lots of ice cream and frosted drinks can bring it all together too.

6. Arabian Nights

7. Under the sea

8. Castles and knights

9. Tropical paradise

10. Space and celestial wonders

11. Wild West

12. Vampires (for all you Twilight and Dracula fans out there)

13. Vintage 1950’s

14. Mardi Gras /Carnival

15. Circus (hire jugglers and entertainers to bring this to life)

16. Hollywood Oscar night (go on, hire that red carpet, you know you want to!)

17. New York New York!

18. Chinese dragons

19. Romantic cities, e.g Paris or Rome – this prom theme can be taken into the catering really easily.

20. Fairy tales

Over to you; have you picked the theme for your school prom yet? Or have to heard of other themes that we can add to the list?

Why have a prom theme?

The Prom Organiser’s top three reasons for having a prom theme:

1. Having a prom theme makes it easier to design posters, invitations and tickets
2. The prom venue decoration options can be narrowed down to a focused design
3. Prom guests can choose to join in with their outfits (e.g. colours, accessories) and that’s a lot of fun for them too

Prom themes make everything to do with design easier, as without a theme, your options are simply endless. The prom theme brings motifs, colours and prominent shapes with it that can inform everything you design for the prom. For example, if you go for Arabian Nights, it immediately conjures up images of desert sand, rich fabrics in vibrant colours, and the arch shape of Arabian architecture, just for starters.

How do you choose a prom theme?

The first step is to brainstorm as a committee. Go crazy! Come up with all the wild, wonderful ideas you can and write them down on a big bit of paper. Don’t think about whether it’s feasible, it’s all about the ideas at this stage.

Next, take a step back and look at each idea, considering the following questions:

1. How could that prom theme help with visual design?
2. Is it easy to make or find prom decorations that fit in with that theme?
3. Can we make good use of this theme on a tight budget?
4. Would anyone find this theme too awful / offensive / stupid to be able to enjoy their school prom?

The last one might be strange, but let’s say one of your brainstormed ideas is a zombie prom. Zombie films and books are popular at the moment, but there are lots of people that find them scary rather than funny. It might seem like a huge amount of fun to people who think that sub-genre is a laugh, but it might be too niche, and too out there for everyone to enjoy.

That list of questions will help you prune the crazy ideas into a list of feasible prom themes. But you’ll still have to choose between them and at this point you have three options:

1. Put it to a committee vote
2. Have the chairperson decide the theme
3. Put it to a vote in the year group having the prom

You could involve the whole school in the last option, but as only one (two at the most) year group will be attending the prom, it seems more fair to just let them vote.

Always bear in mind that the theme won’t please everybody, that’s impossible. If the choice of prom theme is just causing too much grief, arguments and tantrums (they do happen you know!) then you might want to choose a colour based theme instead. One school in Somerset went down this route and chose silver, blue and purple. It served the same purpose in terms of designing posters etc and made decorating the prom venue much easier.

So, there you have it, a quick guide to choosing a prom theme. I’m gathering up lots of prom theme ideas at the moment for prom themes part two, so it’s your turn now:

Tell us your favourite prom theme ideas, and we’ll feature them in the next prom theme post! You can tell us over Twitter, on our Facebook page or in the comments below. Have fun!