Since the first Poster Design class, I have developed the film poster design project further and have also been working on a new project. The new project involves creating posters that incorporate my own photography with text and drawn elements to create a mixed media poster. The theme is a choice of my own and I have tried to make my poster designs humorous, a theme I don't often explore within my art practice. I will write about these posters in another blog post.
I was also given the task of designing posters for a competition related to music themes but unfortunately I wasn't able to complete this before the closing date. I did, however, manage to do a few thumbnails for 3 of the posters. It was quite difficult because I had to translate all the terms and conditions so if I had more time to research the competition properly, I would have been able to create the 4 posters required for competition entry. The competition information was found on the ASP Katowice Poster design studio Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/KalarusStarowiczCi%C5%9BlakASP-Katowice-177153089757/
I kept my sketch designs fairly simple with limited tone added in some areas to give the drawing more definition. If I were to actually create the posters, I think I would make them purely black and white to keep line, tone and visual texture (mark-making) as the important visual elements to include within the designs. I often associate line with music so I would like that to be the main focus within my drawing.
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| Sketches for Poster 1 - Legnica Conservatorium 'A festival that promotes new music - written today on organs or with this instrument. Hosted since 1986, the festival is dedicated to modern creation for this instrument, the diffusion of music and chamber music and above all, the promotion of young composers and performers' |
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| Sketches for Poster 2 - International Festival "Legnica evenings organ" 'In the next few years, the organs are in combination with the trumpet, the fletnia of you, the alpine corner or finally the human. The concert program included both music and classical works, also contemporary compositions' |
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| Sketches for Poster 3 - National Choir Tournament Legnica Cantat 'The oldest festival in Poland, featuring the best teams from all over the country (choirs mixed, female, male, youth, children and teams) competing for the highest and most prestigious prize...' |
'Poster design course is intended to help students to develop a professional approach to the creative process, and in effect a conscious combination of contemporary and traditional techniques. Classes take place at the studio and consist in individual and collective correction of students' work. Apart from assigned tasks, teachers also accept students' own proposals. Works expressing the author's individual style are preferred. The studio presents cyclical exhibitions of graphic design as a form of teaching aid'.
'Poster is commissioned art. A precisely delineated subject is a creative challenge that opens new areas of perception. The variety of subjects influences the development of artistic form. Poster is an intelligent game, intellectual adventure, refined visual art created from many elements. It educates and amuses both the author and the viewer. From its beginnings until today, it has reflected style, movements and trends in art. It is a formal synthesis of a message, the time and place of its creation, and the personality of the author...'
My Film Posters
I have designed one finished British film poster and the other two are works in progress. In this post I will write about the finished poster and the most developed 'work in progress' poster. I began with creating a poster design for Paddington, the 2014 film directed by Paul King.
I went with one of the first thumbnail sketches I created, one that is quite simple because I think simpler posters are often the most effective.
I created an acrylic painted illustration on brown paper with added digital text. I enjoyed coming up with a unique concept to represent the film visually. I did this so that Paddington bear would be recogniseable but not in a 'already seen before' sense, keeping up an element of surprise regarding Paddington bear's actual appearance. I experimented with both handwritten and digital text within my design to create a contrast of typography and an added sense of playfulness. I wanted to make my design playful because it is classed as a children's film.
I'm pleased with the final design of the poster. I think I painted the aspects of Paddington I wanted to include in the illustration skilfully. I used handwritten text within the illustrative part of the poster and digital text for the cast names. I chose to hand write the title and director text because I wanted it to appear more playful. I decided to use digital text for the cast names because I wanted them to be easily read and I thought digital text would stand out better against the brown paper background. I scanned the poster once I had painted it by hand and then added the digital text in Photoshop. I think the one aspect I could think more carefully about is where to place my signature. I placed it sideways towards the bottom of the right side of the page because it's handwritten of course so I wanted to place it near my other handwritten text. I could perhaps have placed it a little higher up the page.
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| Finished Paddington British film poster |
The tutors were pleased with my final design. They said the painted illustration was beautiful and they thought the digital text worked well placed in the top left hand corner of the page. They also liked the simplicity of the design, especially the fact that I only chosen to paint some of Paddington bear's features to keep an element of mystery to his actual appearance.
The next film poster I designed was for Alice in Wonderland. I based it on the 2010 film directed by Tim Burton.
I decided that the initial thumbnail sketches I had created were not strong enough for a poster design so I did a few more very quickly using just pencil sketching. I decided not to add colour to these thumbnail sketches because at this stage I was unsure on a colour palette so wanted to come up with a decision during the creation progress.
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| Quick thumbnail sketches for Alice in Wonderland film poster |
I decided to develop the first thumbnail sketch further because I like the symbolism of a rose and a teacup combined together with a portrait of Alice. The rose signifies Britain's national flower and beauty that could be considered as 'wonderland'. The teacup is British again and references the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. Alice is of course the main character and I felt I couldn't make a film poster design without her referenced within the design in some way.
I created an A4 sized pencil sketch of the rose and cup design, adding some hand-coloured areas to the stem, leaves and Alice's dress and hair. I then scanned the drawing and continued to develop the design in Photoshop.
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| Original sketch of design |
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| Digital painting of the rose - development stage |
They advised that posters should always be composed without crop, everything is important in a poster so there needs to be a justification of cropping. They also suggested that I could put the text between the rose head and the teacup.
I went on to make some of their corrections as well as thinking of some of my own. I added a baby pink background because I think it fits well with the 'wonderland' theme, adding to the beauty. I have a love for pastel colours so I made the teacup a baby blue shade. I chose to use an Italics style typeface because I think the text is quite beautiful and looks skilfully created. The typeface I chose is called Lucida Calligraphy.
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| Work in progress - Alice in Wonderland film poster design |
Further Corrections
The tutors said I should change the title text, use upper and lower case letters because capital letters don't work when you are using an Italics style typeface. They suggested I move the title away from the stem and have it split into 3 separate words so each word can be positioned in a different place within the page. I need to make the teacup outline less shaky and more rounded. They weren't sure about the tiny rose I added within the teacup as decoration, they felt it looked like it was a little out of place. The Alice illustration looks a little sad so I should give her a smiling mouth. Personally, I think I may add some tea into the cup so it isn't empty and I may make the teacup exterior decorative but keep the inside of the teacup plain.
Overall, they said it is a beautiful illustration and they think the text at the bottom of the poster works well. I intend to work on these corrections and get my Alice in Wonderland film poster finished for next week. I can then think about printing my first two posters out, maybe on high quality matte paper.
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