Promo Brief - Poster

For my next brief I was set with the task of making a promotional poster for one of five suggest events. (One being an exhibition on surrealism, one being a festival of psychedelia, another being an exhibition on shoe design and the last two being a fashion show and a celebration of 20th century design)
I went with the first event being an art exhibition on surrealism entitled 'Le Homard est Nouveau-Surreal Things 2015'

Once I had my event set down I moved onto doing some basic research on all things surreal. For this I used pinterest again as in my past projects it has been a good starting point to get my brain warmed up with ideas.

Surreal Research Board
Psychedelia Research Board

I didn't just look at surreal subjects though I also looked into the psychedelia side of things as I felt I could easily link the two together to create an interesting idea for a subject for my poster. After abit of clicking here and there I started my initial idea sketches just to get my ideas down on paper and start my planning out. As after all the researching I had a few ideas I thought would be interesting but nothing i was 100% certain I wanted to do.

First off I couldn't decide if I wanted to make a surreal object and photograph it or to make something digital and move on from there. So in my initial design/idea phase I came up with a wide range of different ideas. From having balloons attached to ice cream cones, lemon light bulbs, making chimera creatures to be photographed. Imposing animal heads on humans you name it I thought out it. My mind was a wash with different ideas.
So before I moved onto developing these ideas I did a little research into Francois Leroy as I felt his work would be most in tune with what I was leaning toward doing with my poster. His use of thick strong images really captures the viewer and draws them in which would really work for my surreal theme for the poster. After all the main point of this poster would be to advertise and draw people in to the exhibition. As well as this his work features a strong sense of typography which I'm not great with myself so It gave me a starting point for that before I looked into combining it with my idea.

So after that my next step was to develop my ideas. For this I tried to stick with two of my initial ideas. One being a digital piece the other being a piece I made by hand then would be photographed. Starting off with the development of my 3D surreal piece. The idea I had was to make a hybrid animal or a chimera. For this I went a little bit sadist and would cut up parts of plastic animals and glue them back together.

This process took alot longer that I had first expected due to fact of using an old hack saw instead of an electrical one and having the handle break on me half way through the removal of the tigers head didn't help either. However once all super glued together my Panda Head x Tiger Body x Puffin wings, makes for a very unique chimera which defiantly works well for a subject. My next step was to photograph my creation. For this I used the photo suite in college setting up a solo lamp light and a white back group. In my previous project I had made photograms after looking at Man Rays work and as such I had really enjoyed working with the media so while photographing in digital I also designed to shoot with black and white film so I had the option to scan the negatives in later and use them if they came out well. This thought also meant I could make a film or digital poster.

First up the black and white film:

























I ended up taking a total of 27 film shots. My main objective bar making sure all my photo were in focus and light correctly was to think about each photo and how the subject (my chimera) would be positioned on the poster. My thought process behind this was if I put in the time now to leave the space for my type I'll encounter less problems later. As I knew I'd be editing in photoshop to edit my poster and type together. I didn't just use my subject to shoot mind, I also used a lobster and shoe just so I had the extra option of subjects to use if my chimera didn't work out.
This was the first time I had ever shot with film as i typically just use my digital camera of manual. It wasn't to different expect the weight of the camera and having to focus extra hard on getting the focus right as since they were older cameras the focus was a little less clear then I was used to. However I really enjoyed the process of shooting film and would love to use it again. If I get the chance in the future I'll be coming back to it maybe with extra chimeras and making a small project were i develop the photos in the darkroom etc.

As well as the black and white film I shot in digital too:

The same as the film my main thought process while taking these shots was to obviously make sure each photo was lit well and had my subject in view but also thinking about the placement within the frame so that when I came to editing the subject would be in a position fit for being the subject of my poster. With this in mind I feel I was about to capture some amazing shots which really showcase the surreal side of the chimera and hopefully with alittle bit of editing will produce an eye catching poster.

After having my black and white film developed in the dark room and cut up I went forward with it by scanning in the negatives to the mac which I didn't even realise was an option till I was shown at first I assumed you could only use them in the dark room but something new I learnt from this project. After scanning them in and choosing two of my favourites images facing opposites ways I decided to edit them even further in a way which would further increase there unique aspects of surrealism while making my first final piece concept. This idea resulted in the image below.

I really love the amount of grain you get from film photos. Just the little impurities which stick to the film really make the photos that much more interesting to look at.
I feel this adds even more to this image. The chimera subject being an animal of multiple origins is then split and stacked across one another. I feel this works very strongly as a poster design alone. The only other editing I had to do to the piece was to zoom in on the subject to help relieve some of the excess space around the subject from the photo stage. However for now this is just one final design concept without type or further editing of my other ideas I don't know if it'll be used as my final piece. With that in mind I move over to my digital photos and start working on another edit with them.







The first thing I did with my digital images after copying them over to the computer was the sort the images into ones I felt would be best suited for my poster. Since i had already thought of placement while taking the photos this was straight forwarded.

 After messing around with the RGB I next added effected to them such as warp and swirl to give a more unique effect to my subject. Looking back at this now I feel this was largely due to my extra research into the psychedelia event. I feel this extra addition to the subject really makes it pop off the page and come to life. As of that I decided to play around with the rule of thirds and the overall placement on the subject on the page. Even though I did this well in camera having the utility of Photoshop really helps when placing the subject and text together.
Moving the subject around and putting it into different focal points really helps change the composition of the poster as whole and can really make it that extra bit eye catching I feel. For example the 3rd image space really works to draw the viewers eye to the head of the panda where as the 5th images space allows for the event title to really shine. this is also due to the type face size and style.




On the note of type. This type took a while to choose and to get to this point I spent abit of time making up a font board which I feel helps distinguish the relationship between different types.

I feel doing this type of board really helped me at least as I don't have a lot of experience working with type and matching it up with images. Its something I expect I'll pick up the more I use it and get used to working with the large amount of types out there.

Another with my chimera idea fully developed and having two solid final piece ideas I go to work on my other main idea which was working with a model but having an animal head. Sticking with the surreal themes and doing the chimera first I already have the images of a pandas head ready to use. However first before going to work I decided to sketch up a quick idea of how I want the subject to be composed.

 After taking my development into photoshop I realised my panda head wouldn't fit well on my image of a suited figure as such I had to warp the head into position which I feel has cam out really well on the subject as a whole and fits the model perfectly. This is mainly due to the warp tool but also to the cutout filler that I applied to the whole piece. It really helps hide the line where the two images meet and adding a minor blur really helped pull the whole piece together. However I really do not like the composition of the poster development as a whole. So such as the chimera I went to work in creating a selection of posters focusing on the focal points and the relationship with the type and subject to give the most surreal finish.

Finishing up two more developments I decided the black and white feel wasn't really working so I went back to the original colour of the piece tweaking it alittle to give a very muted feel. I also took my 2nd development and duplicated it and pushing it off the page abit more. I feel this composition works alot better then just having the solo model. This is because it opens up a focal point in between them which was perfect for the event title.

Now that I had 3 final idea concepts the way in which I chose what would be my final piece was pretty straight forward. I just lined them up next to each other and chose the one which felt like it had the strongest composition and stood out the most. As that is the most import thing for a poster to stand out and be informative so with that all that was left was to add the date and venue to the poster. Below is my final piece.

Even though I really do personally love my black and white film poster. I felt this composition of my duel panda model works best not just for the theme of surrealism but as an interesting and eye catching poster. The muted use of colour to almost highlight the subject really draws the viewer in while leaving the centre space for the font really helps it stand out. Looking back at it now I'm not 100% on the font but as a whole the piece feels very complete and finished. Its sticks to the theme and gets the basic information across.
I learnt alot while doing this project and really enjoyed it as a whole. I have a long way to go when it comes to working with type and matching it up correctly with images but for one of my first tries the process of development really helped get to the final piece and without it I would have been lost with my almost limitless ideas. Sticking to two main ideas really helped let my mind focus and even ended up combining them to get the final piece. Not to mention branching off and making and film only image which I didn't plan to at first. Overall I have a long way to go if I want my composition and type skills to be up to the level of Francois Leroys and Drew Struzan. However I am very happy with my final piece and the process in which I got to it.