Firstly, I would like to thank Ellen Lupton and Skillshare for this very useful and informative tutorial on poster design. I enjoyed it very much!

To start my assignment I went into gathering some quick visual research on general poster art. Majority of today's film posters contain a photographic image which has been manipulated and constructed within a poster frame with essential typography, mainly depicting the main characters of the movies. Overall it made me feel the sense of dullness and repetition, eventhough it would prove to be the most simple and straightforward way to appeal to the masses.

I was looking for something different, posters which contained some sort of wit and artistic value. The ones particularly drew my attention were these posters:

Fantastic 4 film poster - image 1 - student project

Fantastic 4 film poster - image 2 - student project

Fantastic 4 film poster - image 3 - student project

Fantastic 4 film poster - image 4 - student project

These posters have multiple layers of conveying message artistically and with a sense of information about the narrative, i particularly like the the use of typography in 1st and 3rd poster and the image manipulation in the last poster. I also love the 2nd poster's technique of superimposing two images delivering a two-fold information about the character and the mood/environment the movie is set.

In the next stage I did quick google browse on Fantastic 4 posters. The reason I chose to make a poster for this movie is because i saw it last in the cinema, so the feeling about it is still very fresh.
When i was looking through the posters I wanted to see if they depicted the true nature of 4 characters stylistically. The Thing (stoney guy) and Human Torch (Fire guy) have very distinctive materialistic features, whereas Mister Fantastic (bendy guy) and Susan Storm (only lady on the show) have similar costumes, which would also suggest sort of connection between them. Both of these characters have kept their human like features comparing to other two.

Fantastic 4 film poster - image 5 - student project

Fantastic 4 film poster - image 6 - student project

When I watched this movie in the cinema (the latest version), I liked the end sequence when they were thinking about name for all 4 companions. "Fantastic Four" was the agreed name simbolising four powerful unique forces coming together and fighting evil.

I drew parallels with 4 elements, such as Fire, Air, Earth and Water. I also found a quick explanation from wikipedia site:

Fantastic 4 film poster - image 7 - student project

I could see linking these 4 elements with main characters
THING = solidity = earth
HUMAN TORCH = temperature = fire
MR FANTASTIC = fluidity = water
SUSAN STORM = mobility = air

So i went and created a very simple poster based on these four elements in hope that they will reflect on the main characteristics of each hero.

Here is the final poster:

Fantastic 4 film poster - image 8 - student project

And in the close up:

Fantastic 4 film poster - image 9 - student project

My final evaluation

+ I like the representation of 4 elements and different textures each of them bring to the poster creating good contrast

+ The design is clean and uncluttered, with simple typography

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- Poster lacks traditional movie poster grandeur and impact, maybe too simple

- There is a possibility that people will misunderstand the use of 4 elements and fail to attach them to each character

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I think that there is definetly room for improvements and at this stage the final design works as a completed concept, the layout and typography are areas which need more refinement.

Thank you and I would love to hear your comments, suggestions, critiques, anything to help me learn from mistakes and achieve better result next time.
p.s. I apologise for my English, I am not a native speaker.)

Ilze Briede (Kavi)

digital media artist

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