Tuesday 11 October 2011

The planet

A second take on minimalist travel posters, this time based on The Planet of the Apes, because I occasionally check Apple Trailers and the new entry in the series keeps popping up.


Here's the how-to:
  1. First, think of a location that would have sufficient cultural recognition and that can be simplified into a minimalistic image. Little point (or at least less) in referencing something that no one can recognise. For me, I found it easier to work off of sci-fi or fantasy movies for this purpose, probably because these movies also have to introduce you to the fictional locale the stuff takes place in, on top of telling the story as was the case here, or so I would think. Doesn't mean you have to go sci-fi/fantasy, but it probably makes your job easier.
  2. Tagline brainstorming. This was just to accent the poster and is totally unnecessary, but I think it helps make the poster both memorable and possibly funny.
  3. Searching for appropriate reference images on Google image search ("earth" and "gorillas" in this case).
  4. Drawing out the silhouettes on Photoshop. You don't need 1337 skillz for this. Basically what you wanna do is copy a photo of something from Google etc., open up Photoshop, create a new layer above your copied image and using the brush tool paint over your desired object. It's basically tracing (colouring in the lines) and requires no real drawing skill. This only works for silhouettes though. :P
  5. Making random small circles for stars. Like, seriously. All the background portion is is different-sized circles and a gradient. Minimalist is the word. :D
  6. Doing a free fonts search for Planet of the Apes :P. Found. Installed on computer and tweaked a little. If you need help on installing fonts I've got a little walkthrough here.
  7. Submit. :D Click. Button. On your mouse, use your finger and click the lef-..okay just kidding :P I'm sure we've got that part covered. Right? RIGHT??

8 comments:

  1. Your work is stunning. This is a great warm-up for the digital storytelling part of our course.

    As you look at some of the posts by other ds106 people, please note the way many of the blog posts include a write up of the process and links to other examples.

    No worries for now, but that's were we want to be going with this.

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  2. I agree with Scottlo, this is awesome. I love the way you abstract out the whole film, this is what the best posters do.

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  3. Great jump into ds106 with this poster. Attention to the style of the font for the movie is an important detail that makes it really work.

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  4. Scott: Ah, will take note of that next time. Thanks!

    redbaiters & Michael: Thanks for the feedback!

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  5. This is fantastic work, and makes my Planet of the Apes Four Icon Challenge look like a child's creation! I'm glad that you've joined up with ds106, as I think this will certainly increase the level of quality in the group.

    P.S. I love that the planet you choose is Pangea.

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  6. Haha thank you for the kind words. I actually saw your piece too when looking through the 4 Icon submissions. Nice :)

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  7. This is awesome. I like how the font is the same as the one from the movie. I had to look at it twice because I thought it was an actual "Planet of the Apes" movie poster. Great work!

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