Polish posters

27/02/2012

Gary reviewed my work with me today and gave his honest opinions, which I admire, I’d rather somebody be brutally honest than let me proceed with work they secretly think its twaddle. To my delight he likes my apple, to quote ‘that is a good apple’. I’m glad about this because I think that my sickle apple is very witty and I’m extremely proud of it. As for the other elements it is beside on my cover thus far he wasn’t so drawn in by them. Admittedly, I can see where he’s coming from. With the apple being so strong and witty the others are just not in the same leaguer. The apple is inanimate whereas the mouse and frog are characters, and where the characters’ concepts are merely transformations the apple by contrast has a dominant vs. subordinate quality. He suggested that the weaker elements needed to be more 70/30 in ratio than 50/50 which they are at the moment; the apple succeeds in this 70/30 category. The dominant vs. subordinate theme proves the apple to be stronger also, where the apple is the dominant element the sickle is the subordinate however this subordinate element plays a huge part in communicating the message.

To help push this further Gary suggested looking towards Polish poster designs again to compare how they deliver this 70/30 ratio of wit, by no means for their use of technique.

I like how this poster looks like a wolf as well as a gun, this could be a great starting point for my wolf that I struggling with so badly. The idea that an inanimate object could be the character instead like the bread or wine that Little Red Riding Hood is carrying to her granny. By taking away the character feel of the elements I will no doubt end up with more elements to the same standard and quality as that of the apple. Though I do not want to get back into the catch-twenty-two situation where I am thinking about something else so much that I cannot replicate it for over thinking.

I think that some of the polish posters that I have looked at are quite witty but I don't understand some of them. Probably because their wit got lost in translation and the foreign language that accompanies the designs doesn't particularly help an english reader.

However, when I asked how to move on from where I am at currently, we decided that the best way would be to start a new project. Maybe I will revisit this Grimm's book cover design and maybe I won't. I have so far spent seven weeks on it and am no further forward in resolving the problem, sometimes it's good to show that you can leave things behind because they didn't have the mileage and sometimes they just take a bit longer to resolve themselves than other projects. As yet I'm not decided. All I do know is that I have had fun designing my elements and they will definitely be used in some way for my final major project show. Currently I am thinking of putting the strong images onto screens to print with and make some minimalist film posters. The screen print will tie in well with the polish poster research too due to the gritty quality screen printing offers.