Commuication is a Virus

I started at looking at old transport adverts and postcards, that used to promote people to travel to around the country and mainly the sea side. 

I looked at these two books, which had a really good range of different types of limited colour advertising, propaganda and travel posters.

This research helped working out how to use a limited about of colour because we were only allowed to two colours plus stock.
For something to go viral it is important to have a strong look, so lack of colour is a benefit because it will be more stand outish.

Red is often used in advertising, especially with transport since it relates to the London buses for Britain.

Screen Print - Research

One of my ideas was to show a kind of hierarchy within the film production. I used this image to understand the hierchy and how I would draw my design out. 

Screen Print - Research

I wanted to use colour appropriately for this poster so it suggests the right ideas and emotions. 

I looked into colour psychology to make sure I was using the right colours for the right design. 

I looked at this website, with all of this information on that was really helpful.
http://www.colour-affects.co.uk/psychological-properties-of-colours

There are four psychological primary colours - red, blue, yellow and green. They relate respectively to the body, the mind, the emotions and the essential balance between these three. The psychological properties of the eleven basic colours are as follows (Learn how you can harness the positive effects of the colours, by joining us on one of our courses):
RED. Physical Positive: Physical courage, strength, warmth, energy, basic survival, 'fight or flight', stimulation, masculinity, excitement. Negative: Defiance, aggression, visual impact, strain. Being the longest wavelength, red is a powerful colour. Although not technically the most visible, it has the property of appearing to be nearer than it is and therefore it grabs our attention first. Hence its effectiveness in traffic lights the world over. Its effect is physical; it stimulates us and raises the pulse rate, giving the impression that time is passing faster than it is. It relates to the masculine principle and can activate the "fight or flight" instinct. Red is strong, and very basic. Pure red is the simplest colour, with no subtlety. It is stimulating and lively, very friendly. At the same time, it can be perceived as demanding and aggressive.
BLUE. Intellectual. Positive: Intelligence, communication, trust, efficiency, serenity, duty, logic, coolness, reflection, calm. Negative: Coldness, aloofness, lack of emotion, unfriendliness. Blue is the colour of the mind and is essentially soothing; it affects us mentally, rather than the physical reaction we have to red. Strong blues will stimulate clear thought and lighter, soft blues will calm the mind and aid concentration. Consequently it is serene and mentally calming. It is the colour of clear communication. Blue objects do not appear to be as close to us as red ones. Time and again in research, blue is the world's favourite colour. However, it can be perceived as cold, unemotional and unfriendly.
YELLOW. Emotional Positive: Optimism, confidence, self-esteem, extraversion, emotional strength, friendliness, creativity. Negative: Irrationality, fear, emotional fragility, depression, anxiety, suicide. The yellow wavelength is relatively long and essentially stimulating. In this case the stimulus is emotional, therefore yellow is the strongest colour, psychologically. The right yellow will lift our spirits and our self-esteem; it is the colour of confidence and optimism. Too much of it, or the wrong tone in relation to the other tones in a colour scheme, can cause self-esteem to plummet, giving rise to fear and anxiety. Our "yellow streak" can surface.
GREEN. Balance Positive: Harmony, balance, refreshment, universal love, rest, restoration, reassurance, environmental awareness, equilibrium, peace. Negative: Boredom, stagnation, blandness, enervation. Green strikes the eye in such a way as to require no adjustment whatever and is, therefore, restful. Being in the centre of the spectrum, it is the colour of balance - a more important concept than many people realise. When the world about us contains plenty of green, this indicates the presence of water, and little danger of famine, so we are reassured by green, on a primitive level. Negatively, it can indicate stagnation and, incorrectly used, will be perceived as being too bland.
VIOLET. Spiritual Positive: Spiritual awareness, containment, vision, luxury, authenticity, truth, quality. Negative: Introversion, decadence, suppression, inferiority. The shortest wavelength is violet, often described as purple. It takes awareness to a higher level of thought, even into the realms of spiritual values. It is highly introvertive and encourages deep contemplation, or meditation. It has associations with royalty and usually communicates the finest possible quality. Being the last visible wavelength before the ultra-violet ray, it has associations with time and space and the cosmos. Excessive use of purple can bring about too much introspection and the wrong tone of it communicates something cheap and nasty, faster than any other colour.
ORANGE. Positive: Physical comfort, food, warmth, security, sensuality, passion, abundance, fun. Negative: Deprivation, frustration, frivolity, immaturity. Since it is a combination of red and yellow, orange is stimulating and reaction to it is a combination of the physical and the emotional. It focuses our minds on issues of physical comfort - food, warmth, shelter etc. - and sensuality. It is a 'fun' colour. Negatively, it might focus on the exact opposite - deprivation. This is particularly likely when warm orange is used with black. Equally, too much orange suggests frivolity and a lack of serious intellectual values.
PINK. Positive: Physical tranquillity, nurture, warmth, femininity, love, sexuality, survival of the species. Negative: Inhibition, emotional claustrophobia, emasculation, physical weakness. Being a tint of red, pink also affects us physically, but it soothes, rather than stimulates. (Interestingly, red is the only colour that has an entirely separate name for its tints. Tints of blue, green, yellow, etc. are simply called light blue, light greenetc.) Pink is a powerful colour, psychologically. It represents the feminine principle, and survival of the species; it is nurturing and physically soothing. Too much pink is physically draining and can be somewhat emasculating.
GREY. Positive: Psychological neutrality. Negative: Lack of confidence, dampness, depression, hibernation, lack of energy. Pure grey is the only colour that has no direct psychological properties. It is, however, quite suppressive. A virtual absence of colour is depressing and when the world turns grey we are instinctively conditioned to draw in and prepare for hibernation. Unless the precise tone is right, grey has a dampening effect on other colours used with it. Heavy use of grey usually indicates a lack of confidence and fear of exposure.
BLACK. Positive: Sophistication, glamour, security, emotional safety, efficiency, substance. Negative: Oppression, coldness, menace, heaviness. Black is all colours, totally absorbed. The psychological implications of that are considerable. It creates protective barriers, as it absorbs all the energy coming towards you, and it enshrouds the personality. Black is essentially an absence of light, since no wavelengths are reflected and it can, therefore be menacing; many people are afraid of the dark. Positively, it communicates absolute clarity, with no fine nuances. It communicates sophistication and uncompromising excellence and it works particularly well with white. Black creates a perception of weight and seriousness. It is a myth that black clothes are slimming: Which of these boxes do you think is bigger/heavier?

Screen print Poster Research - Film

WHAT JUST HAPPENED?

This film is about Robert De Niro's character struggling with professional and personal life. He's one of the biggest producers but is losing his touch. His wife and him are separated and trying to keep a happy separation. The film is quite funny, fast paced and shows what looks like a decent representation of Hollywood. 

Bruce Willis plays himself as quite a small on screen time, he has grown a big beard and the film he is working on with De Niro's character Ben, are threatening to stop if he doesn't shave it. There is also a director making a horrible brutal ending to his film which Ben has produces, it doesn't go well at test screening, however its a hit at Cannes, because of its bravery.

As I watched the film I noted things and themes I noticed;

Just Willis

Beard

Angry, explosive, throwing stuff

Swearing - drama queen?

Rest of film

French timeline - probably because of Cannes

Fast pace, no time, always on the move

Suits, bluetooth earpieces - handsfree

Dark colours, ties and suits

Screen Poster Research

To start the research I looked at the website - which is really slow - we will be uploading our work onto. Alternative Movie Posters, and look through so of the work, see what catches my eye and see if I can understand how to use two or three colours to the best of my ability. 

Tim Weakland

I really like this design for Jaws, I think its a good choice to use blue because it is about water and the dangers of it, so dark blue relates to the depth of sea. I also think its a clear workable design that is interesting to look at and definitely uses a couple of colours effectively, like define shape and curve on the shark.

I like his other work to, it keeps to that clear visual design which I'm always fan of rather than filling up the page in every corner. I really like the beer label, the colours work well the bear and the use of lines show its clumsyness. 

Stefano Spalluto

I'm already a huge fan of Hitchcock, so when I saw these posters I thought they were brilliant. They're simple but at the same time such a clever idea, like Hitchcock's films. I think it's such a clever idea using the outline of the person to show what the film is about. I think this works well because Hitchcock and his silhouette is already so famous people will recognise it and get the design quickly.

I like this idea of using shape and simple colours to get the tone and character of the film across.

Daniel Devoy

The first image is from the website which caught my eye, having seen the film I totally understand the imagery and it makes so much sense. The film literally is all money and coke. However if you haven't seen it, it still works because you can guess what it'd be about!

I looked a bit further into his work and really liked it, it's very simple designs mainly two or three colours, so was helpful looking for this brief. I think the Mandela one is very clever, using the colours of South Africa on him rather than a flag, because Mandela probably represents South Africa better than the flag.

I also like the Djanjo one because of the background really, it relates well to the colours of the Wild West the film is set in and also the paper style they use for 'Wanted' posters etc.


Richard Amsel 




 I've looked at Amsel's work and I don't think i'm a big fan. His work is highly detailed and very 70's which works for him and that decade, but for this brief I can't draw much inspiration from his work. However I like the piece on the left because of the two colours and how the hand can look like negative space which has made a shape

Bill Gold

I think A Clockwork Orange poster works really well, it definitely get the sinister theme across and that image is surrounded in white which is a main colour of the film. It also works because it reminds me of the hospital wards people are put in when they're mentally unwell in that era and film.

I haven't seen Cool Hand Luke, but I really like the lines created off his face, it makes me think of himself getting lost and I can see from the chains and police, he's getting lost behind bars or in the world of crime.

All City Media

All City Media has an amazing collection of work. They have really interesting imagery. I thought the top one with the lion is amazing illustrations and good use of colours. Rather than use blood red or any red, going with a fluorescent pink highlights it a lot more against that blue. The colours are clashing which causes intrigue, I like that use of colour.

I think the middle image is just really interesting. It's for an American theatre piece which I know nothing about, but looking at this I think it could be about his man and dog, or how much a dog affects your life. 

I really like the last image, it just shouts power. It's about ambassadors

which do have a lot of power, and using that rich textured yellow shows this man has power and the angle of the photo only enforces that.

Olly Moss

This collection work is my favourite from Moss. Like Spalluto, he has used the outline of a character or person to create an image inside, this makes it very easy to understand what film it is and what the focus is. I like the idea of this a lot.

Reynold Brown

I think for me I don't really like older poster designs, in this case there is far too much going on for a poster someone will be walking by. For this you have to stop and look closely at all the detail and what is happening, therefore I think it works better as actual art, rather than adverts. I do like the hand drawn element and the amount of detail, but I think this style definitely isn't appropriate for this brief.