OUGD403 | POSTER RESEARCH

As an introduction to Studio Brief 4, it is useful to begin researching into poster designs. I wanted to locate some relevant posters that I am particularly interested in. 

I started with a famous political poster that I took a liking to, Ben Franklin's Join or Die poster, as it is simple yet so effective. It also reminds me of an old 'biological' illustration:

This is a woodcut, depicting a severed snake. Each part of the snake is labelled with the initials of one of the thirteen American colonies/regions. Franklin's poster was published in his Pennsylvania Gazette. Through time, this poster has been recreated and republished in American history. This poster clearly created a big impact by using propaganda. Some other examples of famous propaganda posters include that of the American Uncle Sam poster "we want you". 

I also went onto looking at posters from nazi Germany, featuring Hitler. 

I think these posters are evidence of how persuasive design can be whilst conveying and interpreting a message. Hitler was a popular figure in Germany to begin with, and he managed to acquire so much power through his use of manipulation and persuasion of his people and his following.

I began by broadly looking into posters and advertisements for horror movies, to get a slightly different perspective on the use of posters straying away from the political angle. I instantly like the style of both the American Horror Story poster and the Blair Witch Project one as they keep the suspense whilst staying quite minimal. I like the effect of the solid black colour and then the tree silhouettes, and I like the sharp change of black dripping from the eyes on the AHS poster.

I then narrowed my search down to a specific company, Mondo, which is a selection of artists who create alternative screen printed movie posters. I found these posters on their archive:

They are very detailed but usually have a nice 'pop' of colour amongst the intricate illustration. I am a big fan of illustration so usually very detailed work interests me. Another designer, Eoin O'Kane,  has created an alternative poster of the Studio Gibli film Spirited Away which I really liked. It's a little bit different to the Mondo designs, as it's much more simple and is more shape based. Again, I like how minimal it is.

I decided to look into the differences between original movie posters and their alternatives which have been recreated and 'modernised'.

I found these ones which are probably my favourites:

Following on from movies, I decided to look into music posters. I found a really beautiful design by Joshua M. Smith (Also known as Hydro74), for the band The Smashing Pumpkins. I love the splashes of gold mixed with the detail. Similarly, through some more research, in other words looking through Joshua Smith's twitter following, I found Derrick Castle who has done some posters of a similar nature. I really enjoy the dark tones to these designs and feel they are appropriate to the style of design I'd be interested in creating.