This is my first piece I'm considering. I did this poster in Digital Illustration and the goal of the project was to recreate a movie poster in a 50's like style. My inspiration for the poster was to go for a sort of Saul Bass feel. Saul Bass was known for his posters starting in the 1950's with posters for movies like Vertigo, The Man with the Golden Arm, Love in the Afternoon, and Anatomy of a Murder. Saul's distinct style has always had a place in my heart because his approach to design was so much different than what was coming out at the time.
All the elements of the poster reference major concepts within Requiem for a Dream. Now I don't want to go too into detail what they all are and why they're there because I'd rather recommend you watch the movie, and I really don't want to spoil anything
.The original had eyes within the Testcard colors that never really felt quite right to me. They were put there as a requirement of the project, but they just always seemed out of place, so I scrapped them. I also messed around with the typography (and still am) to give the type more breathing room, and also because I'm playing around with the idea of adding more credits to the bottom. I would also like to see of people think I should keep or remove the tagline. While many 1950's movie posters had taglines, many of Saul Bass's didn't which encourages me to scrap that as well.
Thanks in advance for any feedback,
Tony
I don't have much to critique on this piece, it looks good! But the bottom where all of the actor/actress names are is bugging me. Leto and Connelly are squished more closely together than the other two names. If you can space those out a little more or just make everything evenly distributed, great! It's nitpicky, but I zeroed in on it as soon as I brought the image to a larger size.
ReplyDeleteHi Tony, I really like this piece. I couldn't remember those specific pieces you referenced to so I looked them up and I think you did a good job of capturing the look of Saul's work. I do see where you're coming from with questioning the tagline. I think removing it and clearing up that space could work to your advantage, give it some breathing room. To meet the project requirements of Digital Illustration I think it was a good idea but maybe not so necessary when turning this into a portfolio piece. The dripping paint does a great job of leading the viewers eye down to the rest of the poster so I think the tagline isn't needed.
ReplyDelete"For a" in the title is a little hard to read and something about the exact color choices for the paint feels off to me, maybe more saturated colors or just a few different color choices.
Sometimes, Saul's background and shapes aren't perfect, sometimes they're rectangles at a slant. Perhaps instead of the black box being perfect on the bottom you can have it as shape at an angle opposite to the title so it looks like the people are climbing at an incline. Having the slant opposite to the title may also give it some interesting balance.
I attached a link if I am making it hard to understand, just a thought - hope this helps!
http://mentalfloss.com/sites/default/files/styles/article_640x430/public/saul_bass_posters_6.jpg
Tony, I wonder if you can list some of the attributes of Saul Bass' work that you particularly admire? When I look at his work I see bold, large, sometimes rough, shapes - lots of tilting designs, and a very limited color palette (which typifies the 1950s design look).
ReplyDeleteI wonder if enlarging your illustrations of the characters to play a more important role in the design would be a "Bass" thing to do? Allowing them to become a bit rough (use Illustrator filter to roughen them a bit?) would also show that you understand Bass' approach. Don't hesitate to overlap them onto the dripping paint, to create depth... something Bass was experimenting with in his work.
Is the paint intended to be dominant? Or the illustrated characters? What would Bass do?
Paint colors need to be more "50s" in tone if you want to evoke that era. Consider one of these color palettes: http://www.buzzfeed.com/behr/16-beautiful-color-palettes-inspired-by-retro-fashion
Heading could be more readable... the 2 little words are too little.
I'm not sure how the subhead should read, this is what I see "Drugs Take You Take You Back"... can you clarify this? It can't be right.
Type at bottom is probably too big... and if Saul Bass is the inspiration, there shouldn't be any more credits added.
Slant the design, tilt some words, study Bass' work more closely and you'll find a way to pull this closer towards his design approach... which is a great idea, and gives you a chance to talk about the inspiration behind your work when showing your portfolio.