For this project, I made a vintage style poster with a modern twist and contemporary message. I based the poster on my favorite book series, Harry Potter, and included elements that were common in 1950s style posters, such as large block letters, simple illustrations, and contrasting colors.
PRELIMINARY PLANNING |
FINAL PRODUCT |
For the planning of this project, I researched common themes presented in posters from the 1920-1960s, and I drew a thumbnail on paper off of my research. The sketch featured simple block letters and vibrant script, geometric people, and angular details. Additionally, I hoped to include as few colors as possible, which was also common for vintage posters.
|
I am very happy with the final product of this project, and I personally think it is my best work of the year. I believe I worked efficiently and used my resources wisely to complete this to the best of my abilitiy. I think that a challenged myself by creating shapes for the images rather than just putting a filter on the images in Photoshop. I also think that my poster closely resembles one of the mid 20th century from the effect, fonts, and style. Additionally, I consider the poster to be interesting by my standards, considering that it uses very few colors, however it is obvious what the focal point of the poster is. I am very satisfied with my work and I would absolutely consider doing another one like this eventually.
|
PROCESSFirst things first, finding the photos for this project was my main priority, considering they would be the focal point of the poster, to work with all the other elements. The photos above from the movie Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix of the three main characters, Harry, Ron, and Hermione. I brought these images into Adobe Illustrator and individually transformed these images into simple shapes with the pen tool using red, white, and blue. I then created a gradient background using the rectangle tool as well as the gradient tool, and used a light and dark blue at a horizontal incline for the effect I was looking for. I then created a star-like shape using the pen tool to add more details to the poster, which I then placed in the top left corner of the poster. In addition to the star, I created a red block at the bottom where I would place the text in Adobe Photoshop later.
|
After finishing my work in Illustrator, I brought the poster into Adobe Photoshop to finalize it. I first added the text, which reads "Fight for Dumbledore's Army", which is a club organized by these characters in the book. I made the "Fight for" in the top corner a script font and made it red to match the rest of the poster, and added a drop shadow effect in dark blue with do spread to make it appear like a vintage advertisement. I used the same font for the word "Army", however I used a block font for the word "Dumbledore's" to create an interesting contrast between blocky fonts and cursive ones. My final step was making the poster look vintage, which I achieved by placing two old paper textures over the entire project in Photoshop, using the color burn selection for one, and overlay for the other.
|