To conclude...

After completing all three developments and designs for this portfolio I felt very proud of my work. I felt I was original and creative with my designs, sticking to the basic rules in some aspects, but remaining original and personalised in others. All of my designs are very different, and all reflect a different creative side to me. 

Within this project, I have learnt how to effectivly and efficiently use Adobe Flash, Photoshop and Illustrator, using all three through the process of design and development. It has been a great pleasure having so much creative freedom to let my thoughts out and be original and expressive through my work. I hope you enjoyed my portfolio!

Thankyou, 

Alex Georgiades.

"Spartans! Tonight, we dine in hell!"

For my final piece, I chose to make a movie poster for the film 300 Spartans, based on Frank Miller's popular graphic novel. I used inspiration from designers such as Olly Moss, to establish my idea and used a blend of Adobe Flash and Adobe Photoshop to create, colour and stylise my media text.

Here is my final design:

My final poster I found to be really artistic, simple, attractive and professional. It didn't look overly fan made or tacky, which was a big concern of mine. I liked the way the 300 font blended with the background and the contrast of two main colours within the poster.

300 has a lot of posters with many different quotes and iconic imagery. I decided therefore, to use a quote that hadn't been used previously, to have some originality within my work. Additionally, I think the pictures work well to present the film as a historian/epic, as well as an artistic move, wherein the blank Spartan silhouette reflects the films roots back to a graphic novel. Overall, I was pleased with my final product.

My ideas...

The first film that really spawned some acknowledgeable ideas was 300. As the film was adapted from a graphic novel, with comic book artwork, their was a lot of artistry behind the film and it's style. I already owned a booked titled '300: The Art of the Film' which helped greatly in terms of inspiration. My first three (very rough) ideas looked like this:

My first idea was to use two shields and three spears to create the title of the film on the poster. There are many cinematic scenes within the film where from a mid shot, their is a focus on the spartans individually battling off foes in this way, which is how the idea came to me. I originally liked the idea but felt it was too simple, or not arty enough to make. Additionally, I would have to use a photograph to create the backdrop and the spartans, which I didnt have.




                                                                Secondly, I wanted to create a solo Spartan on a blank white canvas. I planned on creating the image solely out of arrows, which are different colour to create shading. This was inspired by the iconic scene in the film where the Spartans are threatened by a messanger who states "our arrows will blot out the Sun!" to which one of the Spartans replies "Then we will fight in the shade." Unfortunately, after a few attempts at drawing or designing the Spartan, I began to realise the idea and picture in my head was too artistic and too complex to create myself.

 My third idea was to have a side portrait of a Spartan soldier and create an iconic image from the film within the helmets mane. The image was of the Spartans forcing their adversaries of a cliff edge, which fit into the mane well on paper and through sketch. However, like my second idea, this proved too difficult to create the army within the mane, without photograph and to the level that I would be pleased with.

After a few failed attempts at ideas, I went back to my research, and especially, looked closely at Olly Moss' work on his Star Wars poster. I began to create a Spartan silhouette on flash to replicate this style. I coloured the Spartan in a deep crimson colour, to resemble that of the iconic Spartan cape. I then went to tint the backdrop in a parchment cream colour, to further establish the colours used of the backdrop in the film. So far, my design looked simple, and basic, but clean. It showed promise so I continued my work on it. I added a quote, the title and the credits. After this, I began thinking of how to fill the Spartan. I decided to use images from the film and change their opacity from 100% to 20%, making them barely visible, and also, allowing them to take on the colour of the backdrop. Furthermore, the images began to have a nostalgic feel to them, and through their presentation within the Spartan silhouette, they began to seem like memories of battle for the soldier shown, which I really liked. 

Step 3: The Poster.

The third part of the design portfolio was the creation of a movie poster. I had developed movie posters in the past for GCSE and A-Level media, but I felt that since I had been at University, I have gained knowledge and tools which would aid me to create a poster of much higher quality and professionalism than I have before.

The first stages of development, like the logo, were through sketches and film choice. Once again I went onto Empire's Top 500 Films Of All Time for some inspiration and listed films I wanted to create some ideas for. On this list were Gladiator, 300 and Scream.

Through our initial research we were directed to many freelance poster design websites. Among these was the site of designer Olly Moss, which was my favourite. His idea's were pure genius. The kind you think 'so simple, yet so brilliant'. The kind I personally would think "why couldn't I think of that!?" His work really inspired me, most especially, above others, was his work on the original Star Wars trilogy (IV, V, VI).




Here was his work for the trilogy:

I found myself inspired by this style of the plain canvas, the character silhouette and the characterises of the picture created through iconic moments or things within the film, for instance, C-3P0's eyes created by the two moons of Tattoine.

After some research, it was time to begin my own sketches...

My Final Logo Design! 'Andy's Toy Box'

With the background logo and the character development out of the way, all that was left was to piece them all together and dust up the details!

Here is my final product for the logo development. I'd like to welcome you to 'Andy's Toy Box'...

Looking at my design, I am very pleased it with it. It is the product of hard-work and determination, and more importantly, the product of two programmes which before this project I had never used before. Through this it is clear I have learnt a lot from this part of the assignment and feel confident with the tools I have now added to my craft as a designer. 

The concept of Andy's Toy Box is a childrens toy shop, thus, I wanted the logo to be colourful, warm, welcoming. The colours of the logo, I believe, work to that effect. Additionally, the well-known and recognisable characters are here portrayed in a personalised design form that hasn't been seen before, as it is in my own particular style of design.

My favourite parts of this logo are without a doubt the characters, as it was initially a massive obstacle in my mind, which I feel I overcame through weeks are slow progress and drafting. 

To the Mac Labs and Beyond!

The next week was my first week in the Mac Labs creating my logo through Adobe software. I was so excited to start. My first step was to create the circular border, colour it, and create the recognisable Toy Story font. Although Illustrator was completely new to me, due to our introduction workshop, I felt quite comfortable with these simple steps.

I was really happy with how accurate my work was in reflection to my sketched designs, as well as the colour's and how they complimented each other and instantly resembled the colours of the film.

The hard part came when I had to create my characters. I tried to copy and paste a picture into Illustrator of the two but it was to artificial, to easy, to simple. I felt no fullfilment out of this and decided to take the long road in creating my own characters. I was advised to turn to Adobe Flash, another foreign programme, to do this. I watched loads of youtube videos, and many tutorials online, as well as sought advice from graphic design students who I knew around campus when I needed help or advice. I additionally did a lot of character research and re-watched the triology in this time, mainly focusing on the bonus features which included a lot of animator art and storyboards. Although it took me a whole week, I finally finished developing my own, personalised Woody!

My Final Design of the beloved Sheriff Woody!

Next was Buzz. Buzz proved far more difficult to create in comparison to Woody. Whereas Woody's character has a ragdoll type feel to it, with stiching, stuffing and felt clothing, Buzz is a 'Space Ranger', a tough guy, made of bolts, hard plastic, and ball-in-socket joints. There was so much more detail to Buzz than there was too Woody. But I got there eventually. Here's how his character developed:

Logo Concept Design.

I began sketching up some concept ideas with my favourite idea, which was 'Andy's Toy Box'. I felt as though this was such an obvious idea when considering a logo for Toy Story, and one that had many possibilities. So I decided to get them on paper whilst they were fresh in my head. The first thing I did was draw out the basic title in the recognisable, colourful font of Toy Story.

Here is some more of my sketches:

In these sketches I began developing some concept art, and tried to make a basic vision of my logo. I additionally began to sketch out various font types to use around the border of the logo. 

The next day I began to sketch further concept art:

I added some colour the next day and began to identify my colour scheme. Furthermore, I looked my closely into the characters. Specifically at the details of their outfits, the colours I will have to use for them and so on. I distinguished a background for my logo with the famous toy story sky wallpaper which features in all three films. I went on to design two of my favourite concepts beside each other. 

This is how they turned out:

I posted this photo and put this to a vote on a iPhone app called 'instagram' in an attempt to get some feedback from my friends and followers on my work. A lot of people wrote that they prefered the characters from the left image but the font from the right, as it stayed true to the initial brand image. So I combined the two and finalised with this: