Ted Spencer
Veteran
While there are many things to like about the designs you've posted, and I don't have a particularly strong preference for any of the variations, there are a few things that I would like to offer by way of constructive criticism.
For what it's worth, I will mention that while I made my career elsewhere, I majored in graphic design in college, and come from a long line of artists in my ancestry, some of whom were professional. Among my grandfather's many specializations as a commercial artist was movie and theater posters. Two of them, from the early 1900s, hang in my apartment. But I digress...
Here's what I'd like to offer:
--------------
1) In my graphics training, one of the design considerations that was strongly, repeatedly advocated was termed "quantity contrast". The idea is that in a design, interest and 'dynamics', if you will, are created when elements have substantially (sometimes drastically) varied sizes or employ other means of creating contrast among them in visual 'weight' or impact. This is one of the first issues I had with your poster from the earliest versions I saw of it. Simply put, the visual weight of the three main elements - Johnny, the car, and the title, are almost exactly equal. Going further, the width of the title and hot rod are virtually identical, as well as the height of Johnny. Johnny's overall image size is smaller due its being narrower, but the brightness of the white shirt makes up for that, bringing him into almost perfect equality with the others. Lastly, the background treeline is almost exactly at the halfway point vertically, dividing the poster into two equal sections. Equal sizes and weights of elements tend to be 'static' where contrasting ones are 'dynamic'. The experts will tell you that the latter is what you want to go for.
Two excellent examples of this being done well are right here in this thread; the posters for Gladiator and Braveheart that you included in post #775 here:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=160032&page=78
In both cases, the star is the biggest element, and sure, you don't have a Mel Gibson or Russell Crowe to show off, but purely from a design standpoint the star-actor aspect is actually incidental. The designs have great power and dynamics in large part because of the effective use of quantity contrast.
In the Braveheart one, Mel and the sword are huge, and the horses and soldiers, though multitudinous, are tiny. The kissing couple to the left (hmm...now what does that remind me of?:happy
are large, but very low contrast and colorized to blend in, effectively making them 'small' as well, but in a different way. Lastly, the gray sky in the upper right corner contrasts with the much larger area of mostly orange dust/sky in the background. So visual dynamics are achieved very effectively *using three different methods*: sheer size (Mel/army), color blend/size (couple/sky), and color contrast/size (orange sky/gray sky).
The Gladiator one is a bit simpler, but similar in a number of ways: Big Russel/sword, small Coliseum (which like Mel's army is an enormous thing in reality, thus enhancing its effective contrast when made small), and a bright, near-blown out sky behind the heavily shadowed Russell. One might note that the total 'square footage' that Russell and the sky each occupy are similar, and they are, but the brightness difference is so huge that it creates all the contrast needed anyway.
-----------------
2) Maybe it's just me, but I find Johnny's pose to be a pretty wishy-washy. Like he doesn't really have a reason to be standing there - he's just...standing there. Like an actor. Who's not real comfortable. Waiting for the camera to snap or something. Like I said, maybe it's just me, but I'm not feeling what I think you want me to be feeling from that shot, like "wow...that's one cool dude...or pensive dude...or lonely dude"...or whatever it is you want me to feel. I'm betting you have better ones.
----------------
3) The lighting on Johnny (moot if you use a different shot of course) is *very* hot, and looks very unrelated to the car's lighting, which sort of screams "composite" when the scale of the two are otherwise almost correct (or incorrect, as I opined in item #1 above). The edge light on Johnny seems also to come from nowhere. The overall effect is very studio-ish, and I think you could do it better, even if only via another trip through Photoshop. Of course everyone knows movie posters are composited, but with the Johnny/car scale so similar, the lighting anomales become distracting, at least to me.
-----------------
Otherwise, like I said, I like a lot of things about the design. The elements themselves are appealing (aside from my quibbles with Johnny's pose), the colors are nice, I like the logo design, the red sky/tree are cool, and the little hotrod in the back (the only place where quantity contrast is used effectively IMO) is a nice touch.
I hope this is useful to you!
For what it's worth, I will mention that while I made my career elsewhere, I majored in graphic design in college, and come from a long line of artists in my ancestry, some of whom were professional. Among my grandfather's many specializations as a commercial artist was movie and theater posters. Two of them, from the early 1900s, hang in my apartment. But I digress...
Here's what I'd like to offer:
--------------
1) In my graphics training, one of the design considerations that was strongly, repeatedly advocated was termed "quantity contrast". The idea is that in a design, interest and 'dynamics', if you will, are created when elements have substantially (sometimes drastically) varied sizes or employ other means of creating contrast among them in visual 'weight' or impact. This is one of the first issues I had with your poster from the earliest versions I saw of it. Simply put, the visual weight of the three main elements - Johnny, the car, and the title, are almost exactly equal. Going further, the width of the title and hot rod are virtually identical, as well as the height of Johnny. Johnny's overall image size is smaller due its being narrower, but the brightness of the white shirt makes up for that, bringing him into almost perfect equality with the others. Lastly, the background treeline is almost exactly at the halfway point vertically, dividing the poster into two equal sections. Equal sizes and weights of elements tend to be 'static' where contrasting ones are 'dynamic'. The experts will tell you that the latter is what you want to go for.
Two excellent examples of this being done well are right here in this thread; the posters for Gladiator and Braveheart that you included in post #775 here:
http://www.dvxuser.com/V6/showthread.php?t=160032&page=78
In both cases, the star is the biggest element, and sure, you don't have a Mel Gibson or Russell Crowe to show off, but purely from a design standpoint the star-actor aspect is actually incidental. The designs have great power and dynamics in large part because of the effective use of quantity contrast.
In the Braveheart one, Mel and the sword are huge, and the horses and soldiers, though multitudinous, are tiny. The kissing couple to the left (hmm...now what does that remind me of?:happy
are large, but very low contrast and colorized to blend in, effectively making them 'small' as well, but in a different way. Lastly, the gray sky in the upper right corner contrasts with the much larger area of mostly orange dust/sky in the background. So visual dynamics are achieved very effectively *using three different methods*: sheer size (Mel/army), color blend/size (couple/sky), and color contrast/size (orange sky/gray sky).The Gladiator one is a bit simpler, but similar in a number of ways: Big Russel/sword, small Coliseum (which like Mel's army is an enormous thing in reality, thus enhancing its effective contrast when made small), and a bright, near-blown out sky behind the heavily shadowed Russell. One might note that the total 'square footage' that Russell and the sky each occupy are similar, and they are, but the brightness difference is so huge that it creates all the contrast needed anyway.
-----------------
2) Maybe it's just me, but I find Johnny's pose to be a pretty wishy-washy. Like he doesn't really have a reason to be standing there - he's just...standing there. Like an actor. Who's not real comfortable. Waiting for the camera to snap or something. Like I said, maybe it's just me, but I'm not feeling what I think you want me to be feeling from that shot, like "wow...that's one cool dude...or pensive dude...or lonely dude"...or whatever it is you want me to feel. I'm betting you have better ones.
----------------
3) The lighting on Johnny (moot if you use a different shot of course) is *very* hot, and looks very unrelated to the car's lighting, which sort of screams "composite" when the scale of the two are otherwise almost correct (or incorrect, as I opined in item #1 above). The edge light on Johnny seems also to come from nowhere. The overall effect is very studio-ish, and I think you could do it better, even if only via another trip through Photoshop. Of course everyone knows movie posters are composited, but with the Johnny/car scale so similar, the lighting anomales become distracting, at least to me.
-----------------
Otherwise, like I said, I like a lot of things about the design. The elements themselves are appealing (aside from my quibbles with Johnny's pose), the colors are nice, I like the logo design, the red sky/tree are cool, and the little hotrod in the back (the only place where quantity contrast is used effectively IMO) is a nice touch.
I hope this is useful to you!
Last edited:
rogar-Happy(DBG):
