Design in Film Posters 5-'Raiders of the Lost Ark": Why'd it have to be snakes?

More movies posters! Today's is Raiders of the Lost Ark, another favorite of mine. Maybe this whole Design in Film Posters series was really just an excuse for me to talk about my favorite movies in a Design class...hmm...

Raiders of the Lost Ark

There's some really good simple design in this poster. No cutesy, clever image; no cliched tagline; just a fun poster. Every week i talk about how movie posters attempt to capture the spirit of a film in a single, static image. I think that's the fundamental principle behind movie posters, and I think that, better than anything I've looked at previously, this poster perfectly captures the adventurous spirit of Indiana Jones. The font used for the title is simple, yet evokes feelings of old comics and serials from the 40s, Jones' own era. Somebody thought the font was so effective at conveying that Jones feeling that they used it for all the titles and advertising for Duck Tales (which basically was my childhood). Beyond the font there's the great composition of the images. In the center is Indy in a class action pose and all around him are smaller images of key characters or key action sequences from the film. Plus the iconic image of the Ark of the Convenant across the bottom of the frame. This poster had action and adventure in every inch of it. There's a bit of mystery in there as some characters are shadowed or some are holding giant swords. All of that put together and then stylized to appear as a painting or image on an ancient temple wall comes together to create a perfect Indy experience on print. It's a great poster for a great movie. Good, solid, simple design here. I love it.

Objectified: Form and Content

This past week I watched the documentary film Objectified, a film focusing on design and how designers work. A good portion of the film was focused on the idea of "form and content". An important distinction between most designers and artists is that designers are often commissioned to work within parameters to come up with a product. It is this intersection of form and content that the real issues of design start to form. Form and content is the difference between, essentially, functionality and artistic design. A designer may be asked to design an object, and this object has to look a certain way. In this example their parameters are more focused on form (what the object will look like) rather than specific functions. The other way of thinking is that a designer may be asked to design something with very specific functions (content) and the form (artistic design) follows that. I think of my MacBook computer, a machine that is designed for content but has a very effectively designed form around those parameters. An example from the film was the Japanese toothpick that had a perforated end that acted as a signifier of use and as a stand for the toothpick. In that case form followed content, as the designer had a specific goal (a toothpick with the function of a stand) and had to figure out how to form it to those parameters. Form and content, one usually follows the other.

Design of Mass Production: My Mac

Mass production is all around us, just about everything that we come in contact on a daily basis has been designed for a specific person and for a specific consumer. So for this blog, when I started thinking about what mass produced object I would write about, the answer came quickly; I'll write about what I use to write: my MacBook.

The film Objectified spent an entire segment devoted to Apple and the design of their products. Apple is a company that is, seemingly, first and foremost concerned with the look and design of their products. But beyond looking pretty the design of their products actually adds to and compliments the functionality of the object. The power indicator light was highlighted in the film as a functional piece of design. Another that comes to mind quickly is the use of the magnetic power cord port. This solved the problem of people breaking their computers because someone would trip on a wire and the whole thing would fall. Now if someone trips on the wire, the cord immediately releases from the computer. Cord comes out but the computer remains unmoved. The sleek body and white color add to the overall look of the computer. Apple designed not just a computer that functions but something that looks pretty and that people want to be seen with rather than some big, clunky, black Toshiba laptop (I realize this is sounding a bit like an advertisement for MacBooks, but i really do just love my computer). What is important in the design of this machine is that every in the design has real function and is important to the overall machine. Essentially, less is more here because as more things are added with no real value or even a feature with very little value, the design starts to get too weighed down with unnecessary parts and utilities. It is a well designed machine and in every part of it a consumer can see the care that Apple really puts into the aesthetic and functional design of their products.

*photo from apple.com and my desktop

Design in Film Posters 4-'Jaws': We're gonna need a bigger boat

Design in Film posters is back! This week I'll be looking at the poster from another of my all time favorite movies: Jaws, just in time for Halloween!

The Jaws poster has become an iconic one in cinema. It is immediately recognizable with the famous picture of THE shark and the vulnerable image of the woman swimming. The great, simplistic design of the poster is really what has made this image last and be so recognizable after 35 years. There are many design elements and simple techniques that really make this poster. First I love the use of scaling and perspective in the framing and contrast of the shark with the woman. The image of the shark is scaled way up in proportion to the rest of the poster so as to seem even larger and more menacing in contrast to the woman at the top of the frame. Next is the great, subtle use of color throughout the whole poster. Framing the actual picture inside a black frame helps create a darker overall tone, as does the use of red for the title of the film. The water itself is uses a blue gradience across it to add a sense of depth to the ocean, but also a darker ominous tone to the area around the shark. Finally there's an effective use of the space in the frame to keep the eye moving and create a sense of movement across the composition. The pointed figure of the shark seems to actually be moving up the poster while the much smaller woman seems stuck in her position, helpless from the shark.

This is a great poster that still, 35 years later, inspires fear into the minds of those who went and saw that very first summer blockbuster.

The Iconography of a Standard Deck of Cards

Iconography is "the visual images, symbols, or modes of representation collectively associated with a person, cult, or movement"(New Oxford American Dictionary). The example of iconography we drew upon in class was the example in the images of Adam and Eve. We did not need to be told who the people were in the images, but based on the iconography used we could immediately identify Adam and Eve. An interesting example of iconography, to me, is that which is almost universally used on playing cards. The design of standard playing cards has gone roughly unchanged for hundreds of years, especially the look and of the face cards: Jack, Queen, and King. I love playing cards, I constantly use them whether its a card game or doing magic tricks for friends I'm always around this iconography. I'm really interested in the fact that these images have had little to no change of hundreds years. Millions and millions of people have played with cards that look exactly the same all over the world for generations. That amazes me. The design of the cards themselves are interesting, and I'm sure there is plenty of meaning and significance in those designs. I think it is so interesting that the meaning and recognizability of these cards surpasses language even.
This summer I went to the Dominican Republic and lived at an all boys orphanage. A deck of cards became my best friend, especially those first few weeks while I was getting used to using Spanish again. I never had to say anything, they'd teach me their games, without needing words, and and we'd play or I could do a magic trick on one of the boys with the cards and I didn't need words to explain what I was doing. He'd see the King of Hearts, I'd slide it in the middle, snap my fingers and then he'd see the King of Hearts on the top of the deck. They loved it and it's that common, recognizable iconography of the cards that make that possible. They play with cards all the time so they know exactly what it all looks like. It's a simple, yet affective design that has created the iconic images of our standard playing cards.

Compare and Contrast: Design in Film Posters 3-'The Good German'

Design in Film Posters! Round 3!

The Good German

This weeks poster comes from a more recent film: Steven Soderbergh's The Good German, starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett. The Good German is set in post-WWII Germany and deals with the aftermath of that war. The film was shot in black-and-white and was meant to pay homage to the noir genre of the 1940s. I haven't seen the film so I can't comment on the quality of the movie itself but I can talk about how much I love this poster. The poster is meant to be a very obvious callback to the Casablanca poster of 1942. The composition of the photo used and even the fonts between the two posters are similar.

Casablanca

The film itself is a nod to film noir in general but what is so great about this poster is that they capture that spirit of film noir genre in a single shot by making audiences and consumers think back to the iconic Casablanca poster, arguably the most famous noir film ever made. This poster very well sets the film of the movie, a noir-ish film and all the elements that come with that. Even Casablanca was set during WWII and dealt with nazis. The iconography of the old-style movie works very well with this 2006 movie. By calling back something incredibly famous movie, and famous for very specific things (romance, war, exotic locations, intrique) some expectations for the new film have already been set and their tapping into a specific audience. The poster works very well to capture the spirit of a genre using old school iconography.

Design as Conversation: "Give us back our serifs!"

The original logo

Design is often said to be a conversation, a give and take or dialogue between people or groups about design. But who is this conversation between? I immediately think of the recent debate over the Gap logos. Gap is a clothing retailer that has been around for many, many years, and for the last 20 years Gap has been well branded by the famous and recognizable blue box logo.  Two weeks ago, without any warning, Gap rolled out an updated website with a brand new logo. The internet exploded and apparently the apocalypse was upon us because Gap changed their logo. Bloggers all over the web started screaming about the new logo and Gap's facebook page had thousands of comments against the new logo. Both logos are very simple but Gap went sans serif and everyone freaked out! Gap's original plan was to launch the new logo on their website and within the next month to redesign all their in-store advertising. Within a week of releasing the new logo there was so much criticism surrounding the logo that Gap completely scrapped it and went back to their original. Who knew there were such passionate feelings over a store's logo.

The updated logo

This is a great example of design as a conversation and in the case the sides of that conversation are very clear; the consumer and the designer. Gap spent a great deal of time, resources, and money redesigning their logo only for it to have been met with distaste. Something was designed and the people for who it was designed for did not respond well and because of their response the designers have had to back to the drawing boards, so to speak. It's that give and take, back and forth, of conversation that made up this Gap debate. Gap would have been foolish to keep their new logo knowing full well that their very own customers hated it. It would have been bad business and maybe the whole reason for listening and taking part in the conversation was strictly for business but the design still lead to that conversation. What makes this whole situation even more interesting is that had a long-standing company like Gap redone their logo in a similar situation twenty years ago there would have been no real chance for this conversation. A decision would have been made and everyone would have stuck with that. But in today's world with the internet and the prevalence of social networking sites a conversation can happen very quickly and many, many people can be involved. Thousands of people logged onto their facebooks and commented on Gap's own page about the logo. That's a large conversation that can happen and it can have real influence over large corporations. That's the power of design and, specifically, design as a conversation. Conversation got that logo changed, it's powerful stuff.

*Photo Credit:
jmorganmarketing.com
www.zimbio.com