Animate [Session 4]

Today's session was focused on poster design.

We were given a template document containing some pre-made assets for a poster. It was up to us to arrange these assets and transform them into a poster layout. These assets were compiled from an existing poster that was for a previous Science Museum Exhibit. However we were not shown what it looked like until we had finished our design.

This is the design I created:

My initial idea was that to make the paperclips look like stars. To make it look a little more interesting, I added these extra circular arrangements in the corners. In order to get some animated elements into the poster, I decided to make them spin. Making them into a smooth loop was difficult, but I was eventually able to get it to a quality I was happy with.

After our designs were finished, we were shown the original poster. This is what it looked like:

We read a few sections of a book called '100 Things Every Designer Needs to Know About People' on the Online. This book gave a lot of insights into the human psychology and how we interpret visuals. Some of interesting topics it covered included:

• Peripheral vision, the purpose for which it exists, and how websites take advantage of it by purposely placing ads at the sides of their webpages.
• How our brains recognise patterns, even when unintentional.
• The way our brains break down images into simple shapes.
• How people read and navigate webpages based on their own experiences/expectations.
• Our limited ability to retain information and how we usually remember only a few things at once.

For the rest of the session, we looked at some poster designs as sources of inspiration for our own posters. These were the posters I liked in particular,and chose to analyse:

Return of the Jedi [Olly Moss]

I especially like the posters use of colour and how it pops off the page. The shade of blue/turquoise they used really appeals to me. The poster is populated with rough brush strokes and marks, which gives it a painterly look. I also enjoy how the scene is encompassed by the silhouette of Darth Vader. A very cool detail I didn't notice upon first glance is that the tree branches form the outline of his eyes and mouthpiece.

Only God Forgives [Radius TWC]

What particularly appeals to me in this poster is its use of neon lights. I was initially introduced to this aesthetic in the film Tron Legacy, and have loved it ever since. Against the dark background, the colours really stand out. I like how the background is populated with subtle scratches and marks, which makes it look like glass or ice.

The poster doesn't totally make clear what the movie is about, but it's illustration of the devil provides some intrigue.