Black Swan - Existing Promo

Black swan is a very good - dark - film, revolving around one ballerina's struggle with the lead role in black swan. Feather's are therefore quite a prominent image in the film, as shown in the second poster below, therefore as an initial idea I will work with a feather idea.

I really like these art deco posters below - although I never saw them promoting the film? However, to pursue an art deco theme I would probably just end producing poster's that looked like the ones below.

Below: Super Punch

I really like this alternate poster by Super Punch the image works well and the simple, elegant type used is relevant. The one thing i'm not sure about is the colour choice - havin seen the film, these colour's don't really have any relevance to it.

127 Hours - Existing Promo

I've heard a lot about this film and obviously the main point of this film that most people know about is that he gets his arm trapped. This isn't something I don't think need's to be emphasized in the promo pieces I will go on to do.
I really like the layout of the first one where it show's him stuck between the two rocks - I also like the third with the landscape photo and '127 hours' written quite large, however I don't have a high quality relevant photo so that probably isn't something I can develop.

2011 Oscar brief

When I wrote the brief, I was a little vague on the films I would use, I just said ' the main films that have been nominated for oscars' but obviously quite a few are actually nominated! So, to make it more precise I have chosen to work with the films nominated for Best Picture, which are....

- Black Swan
- The Fighter
- Inception
- The Kids Are All Right
- The King's Speech
- 127 Hours
- The Social Network
- Toy Story 3
- True Grit
- Winter's Bone

The fact that is 10 also means the set will have a nice round number.

Design context workshop

The task in the workshop was to choose a subject - attach a statement/opinion too it - pose 5 questions to be answered. We then wrote questions for each other relating to the chosen subjects. These would then form a starting point for the design context brief.

I have to admit I'm not great at making decisions under pressure so music packaging isn't really what I want to focus on, however for the purpose of the workshop I thought 'packaging' was too broad subject so I quickly wrote music packaging - if a brief comes along where this is relevant then I may sway towards it, but at the moment that is the one I'm not 100% about.

Illustrative book covers

Below is a collection of book covers I have found that, in my opinion, work really well and appear to be mainly handcrafted.

The first example is by Owen Gildersleeve, an illustrator which I have posted about before - its a nice example of how papercrafting can work on a book - admittedly I don't think its the most successful of the covers below but it contains all the relevant info I just feel it could have maybe used a little more colour.

The next four examples - the main aspect that I like about those is how the type works to give an object shape i.e. the hat could look like a flat black shape but the curve of the type makes it look curved and the layout of the type on the girls back is still readable but is quite image like.

The following examples are simply examples of what I feel are 'nice' illustrative book covers. I particularly like the simplicity of the Tennessee Williams cover and it has quite a childlike quality to it.

Photographic covers

Once again, I don't know the indiviual designers of these (which isn't great!).
For this particular Puffin brief, I don't think I will use photography within my designs however when it came to looking at a range of designs, I was really drawn to these. They're so simplistic but the images are great.
I think this style of a book cover is more relevant to an adult audience and it would be something I would bear in mind if I were to design book covers for an adult audience in the future.

Hand rendered covers

I don't actually know who designed these covers as I came across them on a collection of successful book covers.
I really like them as a set and the fact that they at least look totally hand crafted/rendered. The factor that I don't really like about them is the flat black background but in this instance it does work. I think the experimental layout in terms of where text is positioined etc. is something that I will definately take inspiration from.

Existing Roald Dahl covers...

...(That I like.)

The example below was just found by chance when I was looking at collections of successful book covers, I actually don't know the story so I can't comment on how relevant it is however I like the layout and the medium thats been used as it looks like biro? Similar to what I have previously mentioned, Roald Dahl's name is larger than the title of the book, reinforcing the successful idea of using the author as a brand

This serious below by John L Nguyen are really beautiful. The work extremely well as a set but they each work on their own by highlighting the profile of the key character in the story (i.e. 'Charlie', 'Matilda' and 'James'). The textures, type and colours are my favourite aspects of the designs.

Existing James and the Giant peach book covers

Like:-

My favourite existing James and the Giant peach covers happen to actually be from the film, therefore the illustrations maybe aren't as relevant to the book which is (most popularly) illustrated by Quentin Blake, however, regardless I like the tree and the type - although I don't like 'and the', it looks kind of like a last minute thought.

The first book below has a similar illustration style to the film, quite 'soft', so that stylistic approach could be relevant. The second example below was actually designed by Anthony Gormley as a puffin classic and sold for something like £100 per copy - thats a Lot of money but its beautiful, very simple and the kind of hidden type is a really nice touch.
The last cover; there is something about it that I like but at the same time - I don't really like the photograph of the nut from the centre of a peach or the type...but the idea is effective.

Old existing covers:-

I like the old covers, especially the quentin blake ones for the 'reminscent' aspect as I had the last one, but in reality there isn't much in terms of typeface or image approach that I would take inspiration from; except - as puffin quotes it 'The author as a brand' - highlighting roald dahl's name uses it as though it is a brand as he is a well known childrens author so draws the buyer to it.

'Re-designs' :-

While researching existing examples of the book; I'm not sure who designed them and they may actually be entries to the competition. The first example has a nice use of colour but I'm not sold of the type. The second image is, in my opinion, too serious, I don't think it has a childlike feel to it at all. My favourite is the last one, in terms of layout and colour but realistically I don't know if it really communicates the story of James and the giant peach and I'm not sure it would appeal to a young audience - it is a nice design but maybe not totally relevant.

New brief - '2011 Oscar Movie screenings'

I put on my statement of intent that I was going to do my lyrics and type brief that I proposed for the last module.
The more I think about it and try and think of a valid context for it, I have a realised that it isn't really a suitable brief as it would really just be a case of producing 'pretty things' with no reason. Producing type as image pieces will continue to be something that I do when I have the time, however for this instance I have chosen to write a new brief.

I wanted the content to be similar - typographic pieces based on existing phrases, therefore I have decided on film quotes.

As a context I have chosen to create a printed promotional campaign for a movie season - specifically '2011 Oscar movie season', therefore showing the main films that have been nominated for oscars - this is mainly inspired by the fact I recently saw Black Swan.

I feel this will produce a much more interesting outcome and has a much larger scope for development/breadth/range.