After researching a few different advertising posters and
aspects regarding graphology, I started brainstorming different products that I
could promote in my advertisement.
I wanted it to be related to something I like and something
I am familiar with. Some of the ideas I brainstormed included:
1. 1. A fragrance
2. 2. A book
3. 3. Make up products
After using the process of elimination, I decided that I was
going to be advertising a book. There are so many fun ways to advertise a book
and the topic really intrigued me. I wanted to advertise something that means a
lot to me and that I am familiar with so I can have the best results possible.
Therefore, I chose to advertise Marvel comics, as I have always been a fan of Marvel and their characters. The comic I chose to incorporate into my advertisement was 'the amazing Spiderman #850'.
Before sketching out my own ideas, I wanted to look at a few posters to draw inspiration from.
This was the poster that inspired me the most. I really like how Spiderman is in the middle of the poster to capture the attention of the viewer. Additionally, I like that the background is a plain colour, specifically red as it is his signature colour. Red is also very eye-catching which makes it stand out a lot. I like how the font in 'Spider-man' is enlarged as a means of making it stand out even more. It has a white colour to keep the brand identity the same as the colours of spiderman include red, white, clue and black. Even though the background is red, it does not take away the focus from Spiderman as I feel like it complements the overall image. I also really like that the text on the top takes up a big part of the poster which creates a good balance. Even though there is not much included in this poster, I feel like it is very effective with a clear identity. After looking at this poster, I realised that I also want my main title to be in a bigger font size, I want to keep it simple and I want to have a red background.
This was my least favourite design I looked at. I feel like Spiderman's pose in this poster is very powerful and represents him very accurately. However, in my opinion, I feel that the background is very distracting in many ways. If the birds were not included, I would not mind it as much. However, the birds are portrayed very dark in the image and they are scattered all over it which takes away the focus from the main character. Even though Spiderman is placed in the middle of the poster, the birds somehow take away the focus from him and make my eye wonder around it. Additionally, there are many colours seen in the background such as grey, blue, black, white which don't contrast well with Spiderman. I feel like if the bright blue sky in the middle was perhaps a grey colour, it would showcase Spiderman more and make him stand out. The blue colour is too bright which takes away some of the focus. Additionally, I don't like the blue colour for the font on the top as I feel like it does not suit the colour palette of the poster.
Analysing a DC poster for a Marvel project seems to be quite ironic, however, this poster really stood out to me. This is the perfect example of how I want my poster to be displayed. In the background, a more pastel blue colour is shown throughout. It complements superman a lot as blue is one of his signature colours. The colours maintained throughout this poster are the ones that are associated with superman, such as red, blue, yellow. This makes the poster look very coherent, neat, and keeps the brand identity consistent. I like how empowering superman's pose is and that he is placed in the middle of the poster to capture the attention. The only thing I dislike about this poster is the font size of the text. I feel like it is too big and takes away some of the focus from superman. After looking at this poster, I realised that I want to include a pastel red colour in the background to keep the identity consistent and link it to Spiderman in my own poster. I also want to place my main character in the middle of my poster to make it stand out.
It was now time to create my own sketches for my
advertisement, so I could start planning out everything. I decided to create rough sketches in order to give more shape to my idea.
These are my sketches:
My idea in the first drawing was to place the book on its
own and have the brand logo and a slogan only. This way focus would be
completely on the book. However, Marvel revolves around fantasy and
creativity, which would not be displayed if this was my final result. I could
produce way more creative results which is why I discarded this design.
My second design depicted the comic being held by spider
webs, which are linked with Spiderman. On the bottom left corner, a girl would
be trying to reach the comic so she can read it and, on the bottom right, the
brand logo and slogan would be displayed. This layout concerned me because it
had too much stuff in it. The primary focus wouldn’t be the book, your eye
would just wonder around the poster.
I had to find something that wasn’t as plain as my first
design and not as complicated as my second one. Therefore, I put down my
ideas and sketched my final design.
I decided to proceed with the third design as it has a
deeper meaning than the rest of the sketches. It depicted a girl reading the
comic book, and half of her face started becoming the main character of the
comic, Spiderman. This suggested that she was so preoccupied reading the comic,
that she started becoming a part of it. Every time I read one of Marvels comics,
I would always immense myself in it and become the hero of the story. I would
be so interested and fascinated that I couldn’t stop reading it. This is what
my advertisement is trying to suggest. It engages the readers and draws their
attention to the point where the reader becomes one with the hero, the hero’s
thoughts and feel as though they know them personally. I wanted to make that part
of her face look like a comic, and not completely realistic, so it could be
directly related to the comic and not the actual Spiderman movie.
The inspiration behind this design was based on another
marvel character called ‘Venom’. Venom was gradually transforming into his
character which was my primary source of inspiration for this. Just like Venom transforms,
so does the reader when reading the comic and being absorbed by it.
After deciding on my general design, it was time to figure
out the colours and text that I would like to include.
I came up with 2 slogans that could be included in my final
design. One of them was ‘Be one with the hero’ and the other one was ‘immense
yourself in the comic’. The first one in my opinion was more suitable as it is
short and to the point. The comic should make you feel one with the hero and
make you see things from his perspective which is why I chose it as my
slogan. It also matched perfectly with the image I wanted to create as the reader would start transforming into the character; hence ‘be one with the hero’. I
would also include the Marvel logo for brand promotion and identity purposes.
Regarding background colour, after looking at one of Coca Cola’s advertisements in the first part of my research and the posters in this blog, I decided to make it a lighter shade
of pastel red. Colour theory suggests that red is associated with energy, strength,
power and determination. Red is also associated with Spiderman; therefore, it
would look more coherent if I added that as a background colour. However, I decided to keep it light so it can draw the attention to the comic and the slogan, and not
the background. Lastly, regarding the font, I will try to find the closest one
to the ‘Marvel’ font so I can keep the brand identity the same. I will also try
and keep the logo and the font size relatively small so the primary focus of
the image can be the comic. Including logo
and slogan is always helpful for the identification of the brand, however, keeping them
small will allow people to focus on the product. This is why I decided to place the
logo and slogan on the top left corner.
My next blog post will be dedicated to the process of creating this advertisement using ‘Photoshop’. These two research parts were extremely beneficial and eye opening to me as I have more knowledge to base on my advertisement and I learned a lot of things.
References:
https://www.marvel.com/articles/culture-lifestyle/all-new-marvels-spider-man-poster-book-available
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/653317179/marvel-spider-man-homecoming-digital
https://www.limitedruns.com/original/advertising-posters/literary/dc-comics-on-sale-here/
Good planning here and consideration of your ideas for your advert - well done
ReplyDeleteAlthough you have called this research and there are no references at the bottom of the post - it would be good to include your further research here on the marvel comics or other adverts that are similar to the one you want to create
ReplyDelete