My final poster design

Originally i had retrieved inspiration from the footage to create a poster as i thought this will instantly add a correlated style to the advertising campaign. The below poster design was one of my first. I created a dark feel to it from the original as it would imply a negative and dramatic narrative image which i would assume most people associate the recession with. The mannequin communicates an ambiguous message of fashion manufacturing, designing and the non-glamorous-business orientated side of general high street fashion. The style is very simplistic as this adds sophistication. Nothing is super imposed onto anything with flamboyant borders or bold colours. Instead, everything is very symmetrically aligned.

Below is the digital design of my original idea. The angle of Aya's face is different yet the overall positioning of the cigarette and her face in the frame is awkward and artistic. The font styles remained the same as i thought the simplistic serif contrasted the sans serif style for the pitch slogan is very effective. The title is bold and clear for the reader whereas the pitch is very flamboyant to add more complexity to the design to draw viewers attention. I don't think the below image is striking enough it appears to similar to that of a postcard. The design and communicated message is simple although it doesn't have the impact needed to be a poster i thought i could perhaps use this for a header for the website.

As smoking is dominant prop for the trailer i thought it would better correlate with the poster if it featured a cigarette. As the style was intended to be for a sophisticated theme for an older generating, smoking (cigarette and smoke) i thought would visually satisfy this. Smoking 20 years ago was seen as a very glamorous habit, although now many older people are trying to quite they still grew up with this marketed onto them. I believe I'm challenging the current conventions that damn the idea of smoking by making it sophisticated, glamorous and yet still damning it by implying it's a negative habit that's due to a negative mental state (stress!).

Above: This design is the one i favoured, as it was very dark and can be conventional to that of a horror/thriller film poster. This may be because it's very ambiguous, it appears claustrophobic, the red font appears shocking and it makes a bold statement to the viewer by centralising in the frame, direct rhetoric. I believe these similarities can be compared to 28 weeks later film poster, where the poster is tinted vermilion red with an extreme close up of the characters face.

I understand we're not creating a film poster in the slightest although as it is premiering a new soap the advertising style must be bold and is acceptable to be misleading. As eastenders and various other soaps are already established there is no need for this. Specialist advertising is also seen when the programmes anniversaries arise, they may focus and highlight a specific storyline or theme (this can be seen in the Xmas specials). As our soap is new and is introducing a realistic horror style scenario (a business being hit hard by the recession) i think the exaggerated poster can be enigmatic although accurately and abstractly portraying our narrative image.

To add impact i wanted everything to be centralised so when i added the cigarette image, which was copy written free, i creatively decided to mirror it to create a symmetrical and centralised style. I believe this draws audiences in more effectively as visually its more organised and not as scattered. It helps define the communicated message and has a stronger impact on viewers. I decreased the opacity of the images as i didn't wanted to make them the focus but almost make the smoker a border for the poster. I believe has improved the poster drastically and I'm contented to say this is my final design.