How I stopped worrying and learned to love ramen

Doodmann

Hi,

I've been on the PA forums for a long time. I used to try and hang out here until I realized how I started to hate that I could only make something good if I spent months on it (I was 18). In the last couple of years, as I was finishing up my bachelors, I slowly moved towards graphic design as a career option. This was probably a really bad decision but at this point I'm going for it. While applying for jobs to gain more work experience (yay the catch 22 of our generation), I started a small personal project to make retro style travel posters for my favorite Sci-Fi movies. I'm not sure where this will go as I run out of idea, but I'm really enjoying it so far. I thought this might be one of the most critical places to show my stuff to people other than the close friends that actually follow my blog. I'm starting off with the first three I made and thus the roughest. Criticism is welcome and I would also love suggestions on other locals to do.

m3nace

Gorgeous.

Honk

Really good stuff, these make me happy.

Molybdenum

Some thoughts:

The "welcome to Endor" text is relatively difficult to read as a combination of the font choice and the placement. Try moving it to the other side? The texture on the Endor one is also really heavy-handed at full scale.

What context are these intended to be used in? The height/width makes me feel like these should be in a subway tunnel, maybe an airport terminal. I can totally envisage moving past something like this on a moving walkway, trailing a rolling suitcase. These are definitely not the normal vertical format travel posters, so I'd love to get a better sense of what environment these would be in.

I have a slight issue with the text content; try to imagine the client scenario that would lead to these posters. Is the Galactic Empire Ministry of Travel trying to convince me to go to these places, or are the welcoming me to them as I arrive? If the former, a slogan like "visit _____" might be more clear.

In any case, the Ministry of Travel message needs some unification. As it stands it shows up somewhere different every time, and each time it is distracting from the stuff you really want people to look at. I'd suggest cutting the message down to something less spacious and putting it in the same bottom corner each time. Something as simple as
"Imperial Ministry of Travel"
[logo]
would work much better than the long text bar.

Locations! Bespin seems an obvious choice, as does Coruscant. And and Alderaan one would be a nice ironic gesture, since it seems like you're angling for pre-rebellion empire.

Also, the most glaring error of all-

The ewoks are actually on the forest moon of Endor, not endor itself.

XD

rts

BLAKE SMISKO. TULITA REPRESENT YO.

I knew your name was familiar! I still don't remember you super clearly (my memory is shit these days) but I think you are or were pretty good friends with Brian Cottrel, my homeboy since kindergarten. Man small world. I honestly am not even 100% you went to Tulita but I am pretty sure you did. If not, Redondo Beach is good enough for me.

My name is Ryan Schutter, I think I was a year or two ahead of you in elementary school. Man you even went to UCSB like Brian. Did you guys both decide on UCSB because of their sailing program or something?

Doodmann

Ya that's me, the internet is an oddly small place.

Doodmann

@Molybdenum
I actually started with that template for skateboard decks so they are 8"x30" and liked the panoramic look so I decided to try it with a retro travel poster thing. Having done more of these I'm going to go back and retool Endor's texturing for sure (Forest moon is a bit of a mouthfull though) and unify the texturing for all of them. The other 5 I have done aren't Star Wars but I'll probably go back and do Vespin and obviously a sarcastic Alderaan needs to happen.

Doodmann

The stuff I did last week, still working with textures and trying to only use a gradient when I think it ads to the look:

prfntbtr

After reading what Molybendum had to say I can't unsee it, but other than that I really like these. Super cool.

tynic

whoah those are frickin' huge. I know the forum resizes automatically but it actually slowed down my load time for this thread.

Doodmann

Ya I thought I re sized them with the bbcode but it's not working.

Shadey

One of the big things I would suggest working on is your use of typography. A lot of companies will make or break your work based on that alone so kerning, spacing, etc. are keys to a well put together design. For example, in your Welcome to Fhlaston graphic, the text is space very awkwardly. The F is spaced way far away from the h in the type, where as the other letters in the word are all crunched together. If they were kerned a little more evenly, it would make for a stronger design.

Typography is the most difficult thing to work with in graphic design so it isn't uncommon for first designs to go that way. Heck, I didn't even know of it's importance until I took lettering and typography last year.

Hope that helps a little.

Doodmann

@Shadey typography is definitely one of my weaknesses so thanks for pointing those things out. I'm trying to actively build better habits but it also seems like one of those things that kind of come with experience.

Two more posters I did last week, I kind of ran out of steam because of interviews and test projects after these two so I'm taking a week off and going back to Star Wars for my next set.



Also can I resize these with the bbcode so that it only loads a thumbnail?

Doodmann

I've run into a bit of a problem. Someone comissioned me to paint this for their boyfriends birthday. I'm happy with how it turned out but right now its just a forest landscape. The girl wanted it to be the forest moon of Endor, but it couldn't be obvious. I've hit a wall on what to ad here at the end to make the fan that looks at it go, "OH...I get it"

Nappuccino

the burning wreckage of an emperial speed-bike?

Cantido

How I stopped worrying and learned to love ramen

Some time at the turn of the 21st century, supermarkets stopped carrying Mushroom ramen. That was my favorite

m3nace

Nappuccino wrote:

the burning wreckage of an emperial speed-bike?

What about just two speederbikes zooming through the forest?

Doodmann

Hmm...ok maybe a silouette of some speeders in the background. That might work. Like I said, I don't want it to be something that draws peoples attention. It should really be more of an easter egg than a part of the subject matter.

Doodmann

So I decided to try something less subtle but small so it could be easily overlooked or covered if she doesn't like it.