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[harrietjulia]

Passion Project | Poster Final Touches & Mock ups

Here I have added in the finishing touches to the designs for each poster to include further copy, festival logo, website etc for promotional event purposes. 

 I created the info design/alignment purposefully to evoke the shape of a film slate as I felt that tied into the theme.

The mock ups I have used help to create a sense of scale and environment as I envisioned these posters to be used on billboard and outdoor settings to advertise the event, they are paired with a small selection of merchandise mockups ie postcards, tickets and totes.

Casablanca

Final advertisement poster and Ticket and Merchandise Mock ups

Dirty Harry

Final advertisement poster and Ticket and Merchandise Mock ups

Star Wars

Final advertisement poster and Ticket and Merchandise Mock ups

Jaws

Final advertisement poster and Ticket and Merchandise Mock ups

[marksinn]

All Hands on Decks: Research

REFERENCE www.jimphillips.com. (n.d.). JIM PHILLIPS homepage. [online] Available at: http://www.jimphillips.com [Accessed 29 Jul. 2021].

Phillips, J. (2007). Jim Phillips : the skateboard art of Jim Phillips.Atglen, Pa: Schiffer Pub.

Adventuresportsjournal.com. (2021). [online] Available at: https://adventuresportsjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/cdot-web.jpg [Accessed 5 Aug. 2021].

Many images from Forcopssake’s Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/forcopssake/

[ilona-alona]

[kelseywood94]

PASSION PROJECT: Symbols

Not too much energy left today to go into too much detail but I have crafted a whole bunch of symbols for my wayfinding system and possibly for use on maps. One to go but I’ve popped in a wee reminder and I’ll get round to it tomorrow. Good night!

[harrietjulia]

Passion Project | Concept Experimentation

 Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

I really wanted to attempt the other movies I had listed, so I decided to apply the same method to the Star Wars poster as I had for the other designs. I began again by printing out and playing around with cutting and pasting the words to re-arrange and create texture for the poster. 

I first toyed with beaming a light into the word NO. The intention for this was to make the word ‘No’ the highlight, make it look large and in your face. It was looking quite cool, but also proved tricky to get just right and I wasn’t sure at first how this would translate once brought into computer (plus my camera phone ain’t great)

Imagery wise I considered light sabers but in the end settled on the Darth Vader mask as it creates a little ominous energy to the poster. The image is by Inkredo Designer on unplash, I considered buying a mask to create the image but I liked how this image looked and wasn’t sure I would achieve any better with a crappy toy mask and dodgy phone camera. I scored out Luke’s name and made the score look a little like the glow of a lightsaber 

I quite enjoy this outcome, but unsure if I like it with the red ‘father’ or without? 

I wanted to try another method and fell back on coloured acetate to add some shapes to the design. 

I wanted to make sure that colour (specifically red) was a focal point for this design, to create a feeling of alert, evil, danger and also to correlate to Darth Vader’s lightsaber. So in my final design I made this clear and contrasted the red by having ‘Luke’ appears in green to mimic his good side and his light saber. (which I was unsure if was green or blue, turns out he had both colours but acquires the green after losing his orginal in his battle with Darth Vader)

left: original scan, right: final design

Now I just need to decide on which version I like best. I’m drawn to the right purely based on the bold red, it draws the eye well.

[harrietjulia]

Passion Project | Branding the Festival

It’s time to think about the Film Festival itself before experimenting with the poster concepts.

Naming the Festival, and creating a quick brand (this is not the full focus of my brief, so I kept it simple)

So I wanted to create a name that would play to the theme of the Film Festival. After creating a mind-map I was able to hone in on several ideas. I liked the idea of using the words REVEALING, CUT, REEL and/or BUFF. ‘Reel’ could be used in place of ‘real’ as it directly relates to cinema as well as the concept of showing the ‘real’ movie line. I also enjoyed the words ‘Film Buff’ and envisioned the word ‘buff’ in a more literal term of buffing out something that is there in error or needs to removed. I wanted to also make sure that I was able to show the theme of the Mandela Effect within the title and feel of the Festival itself (although I’m not sure how I can achieve this) and this could be explored further throughout the physical promotional materials and visuals.

So after some help from my partner, who is much better at coming up with clever titles than me, I settled on the following list of ideas:

Title

The Reel Film Buff Festival or

Moonsing Film Festival (play on Sundance)

Tag-lines, some need re-thought and played with to be more marketed towards cinema and the Mandela effect. I think it should allow the audience to question something, I just need to get the wording right, incorporate thing such as MEMORY, REVEAL, REEL, MOVIE LINES/QUOTE etc.

Movies as they were meant to be remembered

So you think you know your onions?

For the Reel Film Buffs

Warning, could be reel-y revealing! 

It’s ‘reely’ revealing

That’s a Cut!

Lights, Camera, Reveal!

Re-visiting the classics

Do you know the reel line?

Don’t Cut Away

There is a lot to uncover

Do you need to go over your lines? (something to do with movie lines)

I have know I have decided to settle on the title:

The Reel Film Buff Festival

Creating a logo design for the Festival

I needed to create a quick identity for the overall branding of the festival to use across the promotional material for the posters, tickets, merchandise etc. This will give me a base for my posters.

Inspiration

I have fond memories of going to the Showcase cinema in Linwood and singing along to the Pearl & Dean intro, a highlight of cinema trips... 

...as well as the super 80′s/90′s National Amusements neon clean up your shit, shut the hell up and turn off her god damn phone advert (I joke) but, no joke, re-watching these almost made me tear up a little, and I don’t know if thats just nostalgia for you or the fact I haven’t been to the cinema in a year and a half, and for me I am usually there every week. But anyway, tangent on nostalgia over, watching these sparked that feeling of how much going to the cinema can mean, its not just a movie, its an experience and an escape from reality, something I didn’t realise how badly I missed. People love film and this festival is supposed to be a celebration for those big film buffs.

The Pearl and Dean advert uses film reel imagery within the branding and this is something I was thinking of incorporating into the logo of the Festival. I enjoy the feeling of movement it creates and its use of chrome colours (not sure if thats correct term) evokes an almost retro camera film feel.

I was also finding myself inspired by other logo designs such as Film4, which uses a red colour and bold angular shape to create the number 4 within its branding. I liked its modern, crisp and memorable imagery. 

So with these in my head and a little research and mood boarding of other film festival branding, I began digitally sketching out and playing around with concepts. I’m not one for sketching loads of ideas on paper, I find going straight into illustrator gives me more freedom for experimenting with ideas in my head.

Above: Film Festival logo & branding, noted they mostly rely on black and white colours, are simple and bold. I enjoy the pop of colour in the Glasgow Film Festival and its super simple branding using a outlined rectangle to represent a screen, I’d like to echo this in my idea by keeping it minimal in its design.

Above: Initial concept play and font/typeface selection

Above: another idea I had that i didn’t bring into the computer, but I feel there was definetly something there, I think this one the ‘reel’ would need to be omitted as it wouldn’t work for the concept.

Above: Another concept using circle film reel Imagery. Although I note in the above that it evokes a feeling of aliens, I’m not sure if that is bad or good as aliens can be associated with conspiracies.

Above: Another explorative concept for logo using eye imagery. The eye idea works well with the conspiracy theme, as it can imply ‘open your eyes and look again, you’ve remembered it wrong!’ and I’m a little torn between this concept and the final one below.

Above : I think my final concept selection (bottom right)

Throughout these concepts I wanted to somehow play with with the placement of the text to echo the idea of words, quotes and phrases being removed, placed wrongly, added in etc. and so tried out a few variations of alignment. 

After asking around, I think the final selected one on the bottom right reads the most clearly from the variants.

For the final concept I settled on using a film reel imagery to create a simple logo mark because that idea is used within the title of the festival. I thought this image/logo mark can be ‘unrolled’ and expanded upon throughout the promotional material and branding of the project, ie. I can ‘unravel’ it or use its shape in different forms to highlight or separate different information, words, phrases and imagery as well as uses it to physically frame and contain element, just like a movie screen or camera lens.

Now to start exploring, experimenting with and researching festival/event posters and what they look to achieve?

Initial thoughts on what a film festival poster looks to achieve:

Excite, anticipate, convey information at a glance (date and subject), create a feeling and capture the emotion of the event, fun, engaging, different, stand out, build awareness, attract correct demographic

For this project I also began picking up books for reference beginning with, Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design and Selling the Movie: The Art of the Film Poster

Above : inspirational photos snaps I saved from Saul Bass: A Life in Film & Design. I enjoy his concepts for his movie titles, and he plays a lot with interesting concepts to reveal information slowly, ie, tearing the paper, lifting sticky notes in an animation sequence, burning the poster, punching holes etc. And all have connotations to the theme of the film. These concepts have given me ideas to try out with my own posters.

On his opening titles for Bunny Lake is Missing Saul states “the opening reflects this psychotic state of mind. It consists of series of hands entering the screen and tearing various shaped pieces out of the screen revealing the different credits...with the final action creating the symbol for the film-the shape of a child torn out of paper” the peeling away of layers of paper is a metaphor for the  peeling away of layers of mystery in the film about a child who disappears.

Interestingly, from my initial toe dip into poster research, the use of the film reel imagery to convey a Film Festival seems to be used very frequently. In Saul Bass’s designs he almost exclusively uses this to represent the event, so its fitting that I have used it in the branding of the festival. 

I adore Saul Bass work, his use of colour, objects and suggestive/metaphorical imagery to convey a film was ground breaking and I admire the simplistic feel to his posters. 

Below : Selection of Saul Bass’ Film Festival Poster Designs

[marksinn]

Passion Project: Inspiration

I don’t think I’m starting at the beginning with this post. Keep your eyes peeled for later posts that explain what I’m doing and why.

After a month of thinking about, sketching and painting designs, I have finally done something. Essentially, recently watching two films has pushed me into action, and a part of me is ashamed to admit it. There isn’t a word count or any typesetting to curtail my thoughts here, so strap in.

When I created this brief I figured I’d draw a million wee skateboards, colour a few of them in, then fling my favourites into Adobe illustrator and make them look good. From there I would take the 5 best up to the skatepark and ask some of the patrons there which designs stood out to them. Next, I would adapt the three front-runners and create sweet PhotoShop mockups that would show what my designs would look like as skateboards. If I had the time, inclination or money by the end of the project, I would have the design laid onto a real skateboard (I’ve been looking to buy a new one for some time) and then be proud of myself.

So I’ve drawn some wee skateboards. Then I started upscaling the designs onto the floorboards of my loft:

This was an exercise to let me see how small things need to be adapted to be blown up. Skateboards can have any level of detail that you like on them, I hadn’t considered this until I was trying to draw a semi-perfect triangle for the traffic cone, or until I was using chalk to recreate four cubes. It’s also been fun to work with different media on chipboard - I have learned that most kinds of pencil, paint, chalk and charcoal do not like being used on chipboard. Decorating paint, however, has no such issues. Thanks, Dulux!

And so, with a few of these under my belt, I decided to try some digital designs. So I jumped into Illustrator and totally ignored my sketchbook, coming up with three designs that were all inspired by the day I had just had. The top design, I’ll focus on last, for reasons that will become apparent (unless you follow me on Instagram, where you’ll already know that it’s an absolute hit, with over 19 likes already!). I was told by a guy at the skatepark that he likes decks with very basic designs, just a colour or two, nothing overly detailed. Another skater told me that he often likes the basic wood background with one small emblem or sticker just beside the wheels.

The duo-tone design felt nice, I’m usually one for over-complicating things. I definitely have an attitude of “If there’s more in it, there’s a greater chance someone will find something they like”. The first colour choice put my girlfriend in the mind of a hand-bag she had seen photographed in the arms of Carrie Fisher - it was designed to look like a Prozac pill. So I changed the colours up, and added the separating black lines and textures to give it some subtle character. I then went full meta with the Minimal design. And, if I’m being honest, I’m incredibly happy with how it looks like a wee character. Expect to see that making a comeback in the very near future. But the top design is what really got me going. 

I’ve recently been watching...

...Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and have been loving Miles Morales’ multiple hobbies of graffiti, mixing beats and saving his neighbourhood from a variety of dangers. 

I then went to the cinema to see In The Heights, telling the tale of the Latin community during a blackout in North Manhattan. I found myself wrapped up in the romance, tribulations and music of the cast, and was felt oddly proud of Lin Manuel Miranda - who wrote this as a stage-musical while he was in college, had a modicum of success with it, then went on to create Hamilton, one of the most important musicals of our time. With the success of that particular show taking the entire world by storm, he was given the opportunity to make his old, relatively only semi-popular play into a blockbuster film. You can’t help but be inspired by someone like that.

I often find towards the end of a film I’m inspired by the characters’ journeys: be that from zero to hero, from lonely to loved or from rags to riches. Then I walk out and carry on with my normal life doing normal things. And as the hero of the story’s dreams all came true in the closing minutes (sorry for the spoiler, but it’s a musical, they rarely end in despair), a thought floated across my mind:

I’m utterly sick of being inspired

Now, to my credit, I did figure out in the car home that ‘tired’ would be a far more fitting and rhythmic word to use in this sentence, but this was a mentality that I found resonated really strongly with me. I’m very good at being inspired, I think most people are. We hear stories of people starting their own business, achieving some sporting brilliance or overcoming a personal hurdle and we say “Wow, isn’t that inspiring?” or

“It really inspires you to go out and make a difference!” or

“They are such an inspirational speaker!”

Then we go off about our day, not acting on the inspiration, and, for the most part, remaining uninspired. So I decided to act. 

I did some very quick research (/acquiring of images of graffiti) in order to get the right shapes and textures to create a spray paint effect in Illustrator. I did some very quick research (/confirming the colours) of South American flags, taking the blue and red used in flags of the home nations of Miles Morales from Spider-Man and Usnavi from In The Heights. And I created the top design.

YES! I had been inspired and I had drawn a wee picture to show that - I had acted on my inspirations!

Then I looked to my left and spotted three, blank skate decks that I had bought on a whim from Re:Ply (a wonderful wee company who do a great deal of charity work supplying boards to people who need them, selling boards to people who can afford them, and for a very reasonable fee, providing unusable decks to people who want to use them for artistic purposes). I realised I hadn’t acted on my inspiration, I had just drawn a few pictures of skateboards with the eventual aim of PhotoShopping them onto other pictures of skateboards.

So I took myself...

... into the city centre with a shoddily prepared speech: “I’m looking for some cheap, small cans of spray paint. I’ve no idea what I’m doing, or if I’ll be good at it, so don’t want to invest too much into this.” Hiding behind this self-deprecating shield I barged into multiple art-, pound- and model-shops and pleaded with the staff to help a young idiot out. Amazingly, a very kind shop assistant pointed me in the direction of Fat Buddha, a clothes shop I’d always ignored as it seemed a bit to “...” for me. I don’t know what it seemed, but I knew it wasn't my kind of shop. Happy to prove me wrong, the guys in there were super helpful and they helped me buy my first cans of spray paint. 

Now I’d spent money...

... and as a skinflint, that meant I had to get use out of my purchases. I had tricked myself into being inspired. Inspiration led me to the drawing, inspiration had led me to buy decks and the paint, now inspiration had to make me spray paint.

I’ll stop yammering on now. Essentially, I had planned on creating some analogue designs then digitising them (I’m guessing I should do a post on my brief, yeah? Might just upload the PDF to save me talking more), but then I found that I was doing the complete opposite. Genuinely accidentally. I had played with a few typefaces from various websites to get fonts that represented the ideas I wanted. The top one was semi-stolen (I can’t use the word ‘inspired’ any more in this post) from the end credits of In The Heights. The larger font is something of a nod to inspirational quotes you see on Facebook or on glittery frames in B&M.

I printed those out and cut them into stencils (very impressed that my digital boards have been drawn to a workable scale, thanks Maths). And after putting down a tack-layer (GRAFFITI JARGON (I think)) I sprayed the whole lot in blue.

Next, I tried to get a little fancy. Using cardboard blockers to create straight lines I added stars* (borrowed from the Puerto Rican flag) and made the bottom stripes vaguely reminiscent of America’s Old Glory.

I peeled the lettering off, and I’d done it. I may have to explain the overtly-negative inspirational quote to people, but to me it’s a clear sign that there’s no point in just being inspired, and that’s all I wanted.

A weight I didn’t know I was carrying was lifted from my shoulders. The plan was to possibly end up with a self-designed skateboard. And now I have one.

*Yes, I know they’re crosses.

[ilona-alona]

This week I got some pictures printed out and started collaging. It was a good practice to see how photos could work together to make something new. What’s frustrating about this method is that I can’t resize items, like I could directly on photoshop. I think I’ll need to rely on digital and analog methods.