Studio Brief 3: Alternative Movie Poster

For Studio Brief 3, we have been asked to produce a movie poster for the website Alternative Movie Poster. The poster must be of an A4 portrait format with up to 2 colours plus stock. The poster must include the film title but any other information is up to your design discretion. The poster must be printed digitally and handed in as well as sent to the website for submission. We must produce a design board showing our finished work.

Everyone in the class have each been given a random movie which stars the actor, Jack Nicholson. I was give the 1960's film, Studs Lonigan.

The first thing I did was watch the film and do some research into the story of the film (See Design Context Blog). The thing that struck me the most was that on the official film poster, they had movie stills of the parts that would be considered controversial at the time but they do not actually show what the film is actually about; lack of direction in life and growing up.

From this, I started to work on some initial sketches in response to the film based on themes and motifs.

Initial Sketches

The main themes or aspects of the story of the film which I found the most important I put into the designs. The idea of a pool table was important due to the significance of the pool hall in the story as it is the place where the gang hang out, where the story is centred around and where there friendship is cemented. The representation of the saxophone and the newspaper motifs in regards to looking for a job and not succeeding are relevant to the lack of direction and responsibility Studs has. Another thing which was of interest to me was a comment which Studs makes about having 4 aces stacked up for him in luck. This, to me, was showing a naive look on life and the film juxtaposes any 'luck' he may have as he puts no effort into changing his life or making it better, instead just expecting it to happen. 

Design Sheet

The designs I felt were the most successful from my sketches were the pool table and the 4 ace playing cards as they have the strongest link to the film as a whole. I decided to embellish the designs from the original sketches to come up with some poster style designs. I wanted to produce something that was simple and unlike the traditional style of the original poster focusing on one element alone. The ones I felt that were most successful were the second bottom pool table design as it is striking and full bodied whereas I also felt that the one next to it of just the ace cards is simple yet powerful visually. The thing I like the most about these concepts was that you would only really know there significance to the film until you watched the film itself- This meant that the designs were significant to the film specifically.  

Tried Typefaces

Desdemona Typeface

I knew that I would find it difficult to find a relevant typeface to the 1920s setting without using a typeface that would be deemed as quite old fashioned. After trying out a few variants, I felt that the Desdemona typeface was the most relevant to the era whilst still having an iconic modern edge.  Other typeface seemed too traditional or too decorative and this seemed to give a simpler identity. 

From the design board, I went onto producing some layouts for the poster designs based on the two which were the most successful. 

4 Aces Concept Initial Layouts

I started off by playing around with some layouts using the 4 ace cards to see how I could visually show the connection between the cards and how they interact with each other. I found that any designs with a full page image would be quite crowded and would be difficult to fit the necessary information on without disturbing the design. From this, I decided to try and make the design smaller so it had more of a border around it so that it had room for the necessary information to go on. 

Pool Table Concept Initial Layouts

I did the same for the pool table design by producing designs which have space for information to go. The first one, however, was quite empty and plain so by adding to the design, it automatically added to the layout, reflecting the initial drawn designs I did on the design sheet.

For me, I felt that the most successful of the design layouts I had produced was the pool table design so I felt that this would be the most successful design to go with.

Initial Poster Colour Development

For the design I started by adding in some colour to work alongside. With pool tables being green, I decided to go with a CMYK Green to start off with before building up the image with black and white as I want to use a glossy white stock for my poster. By having the white stock, it would give me an extra colour to work with alongside the 2 colours I am granted. By using the black and white, it allows me to have one main colour which will take the attention of the poster and wouldn't be too overpowering in regards to the colour scheme. With the dark green being the main background colour, I felt that the text would be too difficult to read in black so I put it in white. From this, I started looking at changing the background colour to a smaller colour percentage so it was easier to see the details in the dark colour. I settled on a 60% colour tint of the original so that it was still distinctive whilst being clearer. 

Placement and Inclusion of Quote

I felt that the poster itself was quite empty of information which is quite unlike a film poster but I didn't want the information to be irrelevant to the film story. I decided to include the film quote which inspired the concept of the poster onto the design so that it intrigues the viewer into watching the film as well as giving the concept some context as well. I played around with the placement and I felt that by starting the quote at the top, it would create a natural hierarchy of reading the information so that the audience reads down to the end of the quote and, in turn, the title of the film which is highlighted as being the most important from its size.

Filled Pool Balls and Text

In real life, all pool balls are different colours and numbers so I knew it would be difficult to display this using just 2 colours plus stock. With that in mind, I felt that this would be a great time to practise and experiment with tints/ opacities. I have never done this before in any of my work so this would be interesting to see how I could make it work. I tried to make the balls different so that they have their own style or individual character and I think that using different tints helped this. It defiantly helped create an individual aesthetic to the overall design. I felt that the Desdemona font I was using was a bit too thin when put against a coloured background so I thickened up the outlines by filling them with colour. This made the smaller text and title much easier to read. 

Placement Development

I changed the placement of the quote at the top so that it was closer to the middle, between the top and the snooker balls and I changed the placement of the title so that it was closer to the bottom as there was quite a bit of empty space. 

Pool Ball Development

In order to make the pool balls seem more realistic, I decided to get rid of the black outlines surrounding the balls. This way, it would mean that the colours would have to be more definitive to work alongside the background tint. With that, I continued developing the coloration of the balls so that they would all be visible and clear to see. This made much more of a difference to the poster as it made sure that the ball colours were more in keeping to the tint of the colour. 

Final Design

From this, I slightly darkened the poster to a 70% colour tint so that the lighter shades and white font was much more readable.

I am actually surprisingly pleased with the outcome of the poster design. I didn't think that using this colour match or white black and green would work but I think that it gives a modern twist on a traditional story and the concept sticks with the story of the film, which is what I wanted to achieve.

Even though I had already produced a poster design which I am very happy with, I felt that by leaving it at that was leaving the 4 aces card design unfinished. I wanted to explore what I could do wight hat as a poster design so I decided to continue on and make a second poster.

Card Deck Concept Application

I started off by trying the think of another way of representing the 4 Aces so I came up wight he idea of having a card deck pack just for Studs. Even though this was a good idea, when it came to producing it and trying to apply it, it looked very badly done and quite amateurish. There was no way that I would feel comfortable using it so I scrapped it and decided to take a new approach.

Quote Inclusion and Placement

With the previous poster, I included a quote that my poster concept was based on so I decided to do the same with this one. This was all the more relevant to the message and occurrences within the film and give context to the poster itself. I played with the position of the Aces alongside the placement of the quote itself. I felt that I liked the original design better with the four rows of aces as it has much more of a commanding presence and the placement of the cards amongst the rest highlights the lack of luck and set backs that Studs finds himself under. 

Resizing and Image Placement

I decided to put the quote alongside the title of the film as it made sense to have all of the information together. so as to aid readability.  I varied the sizes of the fonts to highlight the hierarchy of information as well as to aid the line lengths so that they fitted better on the page and looked much more gridded.

Colour Application

Traditionally, the colours associate with playing cards is black, red and white so I felt that this would be colour scheme which would be suitable for the poster. I decided to go with a CMYK Red as the main colour as the colour red in playing cards is usually very bright and bold. When I applied the colour to the background however it didn't suit the design as it came across as cheapened. I swapped the red for the black and it came across much classier which reflects the style of the 1920's era.

Introduction of Card Back Pattern

The next thing I needed to do was apply a background pattern to the back of the other playing cards so that it is much more authentic. I started off with the pool balls by themselves but this was a little bit empty so I took the design from the previous poster and put into onto the backs. I experimented with having different alternative coloured backs as well as same coloured backs. Even though this was much more successful, the trouble with this pattern was that it is quite empty on one side so I decided to produce more of a geometric pattern using the circles and triangle shapes from the pool table design so as to create a pattern which is still in keeping with the film. Also, I made the shade of the black background lighter in its tint which I felt made it clearer to see the details and got rid of the black outlines on the cards so that they were more authentic.

Card Back Experimentation

I experimented with a range of different patterns based around the circles and triangles around pool. The problem with these sort of patterns was that they were very difficult and heavy on the eye, like they were giving an optical illusion which is not the effect I wanted to create. In the end, after producing a range of different ones, I ended up liking the first experimentation that I did, which alternates circles and triangles. Also, I changed back to black for the background so that I could have the card backgrounds all in red so that there is some strong succinct correlation between the cards.

Body Copy Text Placement

Then I experimented with the placement of the quote, as I felt that the information was a bit bottom heavy. The problem I found was that then the title was by itself at the bottom, it looked very empty so I had to keep some information with it. However, eventually I was drawn to have the quote in the middle of the cards so that it instantly draws the audiences eye to the poster itself. I put the actors at the top of the title so as to act like an imaginary line between the illustration and the main title of the film, emphasising the hierarchy of information.

Final Design

The final thing I did was expand and fill the typeface so that it was easier to read on the dark background. Also, I added at the top some more information which is on the actual film poster itself. I did this because I feel it is in keeping with the more traditional style of this poster compared to the more modern aesthetic of the pool table poster.

What I like about this poster is that it is much more of a traditional style and reflects the era the film is set in. I like the ambiguity of the imagery and how it reflects the quote which, in itself, is ambiguous out of context but this draws an interest into the film. 

Poster Photoshop Mock Ups

To give much more of a professional application and presentation of my work, I decided to display the posters within the context of a Photoshop mock up. Instantly, the mock up helps to emphasise the posters and make them jump out of the image.

Final Designs:

2 A4 Portrait Posters with up to 2 colours plus stock, including the film title and some other relevant information. The poster must be printed digitally and handed in as well as sent to the website for submission.

Final Illustration Designs

Mock Up Posters

What I like about the designs is that they are two different images but have a consistent aesthetic which would mean that they would work as a set due to the typeface choice and content of the posters.

Printed Submission:

For the printed submission, I needed to print off an A4 version to hand in of my posters whereas I also needed to print off an A3 version of each poster for submission.

Printed Posters 

I printed off my posters on glossy satin paper to give them the glossy sheen that is typical of a professional film poster. I think they came out very well and looked like they could be used for a campaign.

Submission for Website:

As part of the submission, we must send our designs to the Alternative Movie Poster website.

Submission Details

The website asks that we send in our posters as a low resolution JPEG of 72dpi with a maximum width of 700dpi.

Submission Requirements

As required, I put my 2 images into Photoshop at 1000 pixel height x 700 pixel width which seemed to space out very well. I saved the images as JPEGs with a low level image quality.

Emailing Alternative Movie Poster Submission

From here, I emailed the website using the address provided giving the necessary information of my name, the film and a website they could link to. Just for the occasion, I made a Behance profile, as up to this point, I haven't ever showcased my work and felt that it would be more professional if they had a website that they could link it back to.

Design Boards:

For the brief, we need to produce a Design Board showing our finished designs

Overall, it took me a while to get into this brief but when I did, I enjoyed it as it was something fun and imaginative whilst sticking to the confines of a film. It made it harder to get into based on the fact that I didn't know the film and the style of it put me off a bit but I think it was easier than if I had done a film that I knew well and liked.