Degree Show Exhibition and Poster Design

I've been busy designing a poster for my game to be shown at the degree show next month.  I started by looking in to commercial posters for both horror video games and film.

I definitely prefer the more minimalist approach as it ties in with the idea of playing with the viewer's imagination which has been fundamental in my approach for creating atmosphere in my project.  However I feel Ritual is obviously not distinct enough to pull off something as minimalistic as the Evil Dead poster above.  I love the idea of incorporating moody lighting such as that depicted in the Alan Wake poster and I also love the hyper contrast of The Blair Witch Project poster.  The Evil Within poster also makes great use of negative space with just the right amount of gore.

After some super rough sketching of ideas I then moved on to creating some polished thumbnails and asked people what their favourites were. 

Most people seemed to prefer 6, saying the composition was simple but effective and withheld enough information for them to be both interested and creeped out.  

I gave the first iteration (above) to an artist friend who gave it a really useful paint-over which led to my second iteration which I posted online for the internet to tear in to:

General crit:

- It looks like the boy is being hanged (bit too edgy for a student exhibition, oops.)

- Add some rocks and mud etc coming off him to show he's floating

- Shoes are too dark and act as a focal point as a result
- Make the trees at the side more curved to give the composition an ovel shape
- Add a black overlay to the boy to give him more mystery
- Make the "May 2015" type smaller or change it to the primary typeface.
- Typeface is too clean in comparison to the illustration
- Add a splash of colour for more visual interest

- Add smoke or fog around the boy to give him more substance and suggest a light source

Still playing about with colour however this is the latest iteration (will edit this post with the new one when it's finalised):

I've also been considering the general layout for my degree show space.  Below is an example from last year of the space I've been allocated.  I really like how Rebecca included the decorative mirror fragments here as it gives a nice sort of personal touch (as opposed to just sticking up a bunch of posters and leaving it at that) however I can't really think of anything appropriate in relation to my own project.

I've made the following mock up of how my posters will be laid out (A2 portrait for the main poster, A4 landscape for the rest with an A5 sheet underneath the main poster describing my project):

At previous degree shows I've noticed that the mounted posters always stand out the most and look a lot more professional so I really want to do the same for mine.  All my images will be mounted on 5mm foam mount and I'll hopefully have a little stand for a sketchbook and business cards.  The images I've chosen to showcase will be displayed in chronological order from top to bottom, beginning with early art test examples, concept art and finally some screenshots of the game.  When we were showcasing Strawberry Thief last summer at Protoplay festival, Sophia ordered Strawberry Thief printed fabric to hang over our stand and underneath our poster.  It was simple but effective and I think adding this sort of extra element to a display can look really classy.  I'm hopefully going to be able to purchase a small sheet of black chiffon fabric to hang over the stand I want to put my sketchbook and business cards on but honestly it depends on my funds (fourth year/graduating is hella expensive.)

The biggest issue I'm having at the moment is all of my test prints are coming out super dark.  I've had a similar issue with my business cards too (see the designs below).  Despite them coming out fine in previous test prints before sending them off to moo.com, the designs turned out super dark and I'm really not happy with them.  I also didn't factor in time for self branding, choosing to focus more on Ritual and its promotional materials for the showcase.  In retrospect this was a mistake as I'm supposed to be selling myself as an artist rather than the game as a commercial product.  However for future ventures in to business card design I've learned to stick to brighter, more print friendly colour schemes.  After getting some feedback on previous iterations of the current card design someone also suggested I include more whitespace for people to potentially write on.  I considered this however as these designs are solely for the purposes of the degree show (like I said I'd much rather develop a brand for myself than simply throw some old concept art on a card) I felt it wouldn't be too much of an issue.  On a similar note, I'll also be much more considerate of my general layout next time (because look at how boring it is and how off-centre my information is, urgh!).

So yeah, printing-wise I may have to heighten the white levels like crazy in all my images and just hope for the best when I send them off.  As most of my work been digital this year the majority of my sketchbook will have to consist of printed off images which I imagine will have the same problem.  I'm sure I'll find a way around it.  Probably.

Finally, I should also mention that I have a website now!  I'm quite pleased with how it turned out - I wanted to keep it quite minimal and the geometric shapes look clean and neat and I feel my current branding works really well as header.  Though on the other hand, the sides look pretty empty and would maybe benefit from some sort of subtle background element.  Definitely want to develop a more in-depth brand after graduation.