Film Poster Design

For my third and final assignment for this introduction to graphic design, I was asked to produce a film poster, either for an already existing film or a fictional one. It should be A4 in size, and include the title, a byline, a review quote and a main image, which could be a mixture of several images. We could also use Photoshop, InDesign or Illustrator to produce our posters.

It was also suggested however that they should not perhaps be conventional film posters, but should incorporate some of the design elements we had been learning about. Whilst researching not so conventional film posters, I particularly liked the posters of artist Olly Moss, of which some are shown below.

His posters are very clever in their composition, and incorporate iconic images from the films they are about. The use of iconic shapes and images was something I wanted to incorporate in my own poster.

First, however, I had to decide upon what to film to make a poster about, of which I narrowed down to a short list of five possibilities, namely "Big", "The Princess Bride", "Howl's Moving Castle", "The Wizard of Oz" and a fictional film based on the book "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies". Various posters of these can be seen below.

After looking at various possibilities for each one, and looking at images related to each theme, I decided upon creating a poster for Howl's Moving Castle. I felt that this film included several elements and shapes which I could utilise. Also, as I was researching, I looked at several posters for each of the films, some of which were created by fans, and as such for those more iconic films, such as the Wizard of Oz, I would be too influenced by what I had seen. Howl's Moving Castle's posters however mainly appeared to be created by taking stills from the film, thus allowing me to create something different from the original. 

Here is a brief summary of Howl's Moving Castle, taken from IMDB:

"A young woman named Sophie is cursed by the Witch of the Waste, turns into an old woman, and is unable to tell anyone of her plight. Unable to continue her job at her mother's hat shop, she goes to the ambulatory castle of the notorious wizard Howl and insinuates herself into his household. Sophie befriends Calcifer, the fire demon who powers the castle and who is bound to Howl by a contract, the terms of which Calcifer cannot reveal. They promise to help each other with their problems. Like Calcifer, Howl can also see through the Witch's spell, and he and Sophie fall in love. Sophie helps Howl confront his former teacher, and the Witch of the Waste."

From my own knowledge, I sketched some of the various major elements of the film, in order to decide on which one, as seen in Sketch 1.

Sketch 1 - Howl's Moving Castle Ideas

From my sketching, and inspired by the following image, I decided to focus on the character of Calcifer for my poster, whose role underpins the whole plot line, as his contract with Howl is the mystery that is revealed at the end. He hints at his connection throughout the film, that he has Howl's heart, and so I wanted my image to hint at this connection also, without being completely explicit. Sketch 2 shows my final design for the poster.

Sketch 2 - Final Poster Sketch

Some key features I wanted to incorporate was a feeling of layered paper, because I did not want it took look photographic, as it is an animated film. The centre of Calcifer also should be shaped like a human heart, and his character should be the focus of the poster.

Considering my design, I decided that Illustrator would be the best programme for me to use, especially due to it's Image Tracing tool, to enable to easily convert complex images to simpler designs, which eventually I would use a lot of in the creation of my poster.

Therefore the first thing I wanted to create was my portrayal of Calcifer, in particular it's heart core. In screenshot 1 you can see the original image, which was chosen for it's clean lines, and almost cartoon appearance. An image trace was carried out, and after experimentation, it was found that isolating just three of the colours worked best. 

Screenshot 1 - Original heart image

After this the colours were changed to yellow, as depicted in the image of him from the film, and very simple eyes were added. The eyes were kept simple so as to maintain a graphic, animation and 2D feel to the poster, as seen in screenshot 2.

Screenshot 2 - Yellow heart.

I decided next to create the rest of the flame body of Calcifer by using a similar method as creating the heart, by using image trace on a picture of a flame, and then adjusted as required. The original image can be seen in screenshot 3.

Screenshot 3 - Original image of fire

After changing the colours and shape of the resulting flame image, and layering it with the heart, I also added a drop shadows as I outlined in my original sketch. I also added a canvas texture to both images to emphasise the paper layering effect I wanted. I added some blurring, to make the core seem more flame like, and with some minor adjustments of rotation and opacity, it resulted in the image shown in screenshot 4.

Screenshot 4 - Calcifer and various hands

Screenshot 4 also highlights the images of hands I tried with the poster. Although different from my initial sketch, I decided upon the hands on the right in screenshot 4, which eventually became like that shown in screenshot 5. This was because I liked the composition of the hands coming from the bottom left, as it appeared more intimate, putting the viewer in the position of those whose hands they were. Also, as I knew I would be simplifying the image to utilise only a few colours, the shadows between the fingers in that particular image would ensure that it would still be clear that they were hands. Screenshot 5 shows the result of an image trace using 16 colours for that particular image, with the background removed.

Screenshot 5 - Calcifer and decided upon hands

Again, as outlined in my initial sketch, I then set about creating a background made of black feathers. I wanted to use this background, as the monster which Howl turns into during the film, and which is also a repeated element, is  similar to a big black bird. Hence the black feathers. The original image which the feathers were taken from is shown below (which happened to be a detail from a skirt), and the result of an image trace producing an image in shades of grey is shown in screenshot 6. This particular image trace was chosen in the end after experimentation, and although contrast was required between Calcifer, the hands and the background, if left in as the photo, the result was too disjointed, and the background appeared at odds with the main image. With the result in screenshot 6 however, contrast was still there, however the whole poster was more cohesive.

Screenshot 6 - Image with poster background

In my initial sketch I wanted the hands to be white, however I also wanted to maintain the detail of highlights and shadows on the hands, and therefore decided to convert the image to a black and white one. The easiest way for me to do this was to take the hand image, transfer to Photoshop, make the adjustments required, including with the black and white colourisation, also brightness and contrast adjustments, and then transfer back into Illustrator as seen in screenshots 7 and 8. In addition, the hands were also given a canvas texture and a drop shadow in order to make them appear more paper-like as well, as seen in screenshot 8.

Screenshot 7 - Hand image made black and white

Screenshot 8 - Final image and background

All that was left then was all the text to put on the poster, and as I discovered, it was not as easy as I first thought. I initially tried having the title on one line, as I originally sketched, at the top of the page rather than the bottom, what with the change in layout of my poster from the change of position of my hands image. This is shown in screenshot 9.

Screenshot 9 - Initial title attempt

I did not like the result though, as I felt that the title had too little impact, and in the end decided upon the layout shown in screenshot 10. The text was adjusted to ensure that both lines of text were the same length, as the emphasised alignment highlighted the titular character of Howl within the film. The typeface used was Trajan Pro, a roman based type, which is very clear and all caps. I think it works with this particular film poster, as although a fantasy film, Howl's Moving Castle is set in a world akin to Victorian Britain, and the classical typeface reflects that. It was made white as well, to stand out against the black background, and to ensure that the focus was on the image of Calcifer, being the only thing in colour on the poster.

Screenshot 10 - New layout of title

I also wanted to add the director's name near the title as well however, especially because that is one of the major selling points of the film, as Hayao Miyazaki (the director) is arguably one of the best well known Japanese animation directors. To reflect his nationality and also the origin of the films production, his name was put in columns, to the left of the title as shown in screenshot 11. Again, the same font was used to ensure continuity, but there was a stark contrast with orientation. Also, being placed in the top left corner, the major selling point of the film was put in a position which one would read first in the traditional sense of reading left to right, top to bottom. The gridlines shown in screenshot 11 also ensured that the text was carefully aligned.

Screenshot 11 - Poster with title and director

The by-line, or line which sold the film, was decided to be "From the Academy award-winning director of 'Spirited Away'". Not only does this highlight the director's apparent expertise but also names another successful film, suggesting to the viewer, "if you've watched 'Spirited Away', or heard good things about it, then you will probably like this too." The same font, Trajan Pro was used again, and it lined up exactly underneath the text of the title and director. Contrast was added within the sentence to the words 'Academy' and 'Spirited Away' by putting in capitals and bold, to highlight the main points of the by line, as shown in screenshot 12.

Screenshot 12 - Finished poster with some of the grid lines

The review quote was placed, rather small, in the bottom left corner. I did not want to detract from the main image, namely that of Calcifer, by crowding it with too much, or too large text, hence the reasoning for it's position. It was written in black to stand out against the white and grey hand. Also, the font of the actual quote was Imprint MT Shadow, in comparison with the Trajan Pro type used for the person's, who was being quoted, name and profession. This was to indicate the difference of source from the rest of the text on the poster.

The final poster can be seen below, one smaller version and one huge one!

Final Film Poster Design - Small

Final Film Poster Design - Large

The final film poster I think looks quite good. I think it is a good representation of what I initially sketched, with some minor changes in layout. The core of the poster, the character of Calcifer, I think is recognisable as him, and although to those who have not seen the film, they might not be able to see the heart shape, I do think it is quite clear to those who have, and know the secret of Calcifer's power. This too I think fulfills what I originally wanted to achieve, hinting at something without being too explicit. It might be considered a little conventional in layout, with a central image, and text at the top and bottom, I however feel that in this case, the relative simplicity in layout allows the image to be the focus. The text itself is not uniform or simple, but uses contrasting sizes, orientations, spacing and thickness to provide interest. One element which perhaps does not work as well as the others however, is the review quote in the bottom left corner. This was decided upon after lots of experimentation to find the best position for it, and was needed to fulfill the initial brief. I feel though that perhaps the poster works best without that element at all, as shown below.

Final Film Poster - without review quote

In addition, the background perhaps does not translate exactly as feathers up close, but regardless, it does provide an interesting texture and background.

As a whole, I think it is a clear representation of an iconic character from Howl's Moving Castle, and works to promote the film in a different way from that already done.