Poster research

1. Matthew Teagle – De Montfort
University – New Media Design
Portfolio
Poster Design Research

2. For my poster design, I decided that I would create a poster for The
Lion King as it is my favourite Disney film and also, there is a live
action remake of the original film being released in the upcoming
year. I felt that when it came to researching poster designs, I should
focus on posters specifically for Disney films, particularly more
recent ones as I would be hoping to achieve a similar style with my
own product. Beauty and the Beast and The Jungle Book are also
both examples of recent live action remakes made by Disney and
therefore these seemed like relevant posters to research.
The first thing that I noticed when researching Disney posters was
that the layouts of each are extremely busy, with an awful lot going
on in the canvas. They usually contain a large number of the cast
members or characters and are all vibrant in terms of their colour
schemes. Surprisingly, not every poster included a tagline for the
film which is probably because of the cluttered layout. One
exception to this is the poster for Enchanted, which contains a
tagline at the top, however I would argue that there is not as much
detail in this poster as the other two and that is potentially why
there is more space to include this tagline. Disney films are primarily
targeted at children and families and it is important when designing
my poster to keep this in mind. The names of the cast members are
usually included somewhere as well as the company credits found at
the bottom of each poster. It is important to include aspects like this
to my final design so that my poster looks authentic.

3. The original posters for The Lion King which was released in 1994
were all relatively similar in design and therefore this has
encouraged me to design a poster that follows the conventions of
Disney posters, yet differs from previous posters for The Lion King.
Despite deciding that I want the layout and design of my poster to
deviate from these original posters, there is still plenty of research
that I can do with these designs that will inform my final product.
For example, the colour scheme is one thing that is not consistent
on all of the posters, but since the film is set in the African
savannahs I believe that using a warmer tone would make more
sense. Some of the key motifs of the film are included on these
posters and as well as the characters, I want to include these motifs
onto my own design. For example, the silhouette of Pride Rock
appears in the majority of the original posters, as does the African
sun rising either over the horizon or Pride Rock itself. The sun in The
Lion King is a main motif as it is referred to throughout the film as
the ‘Circle of Life’. These posters are not anywhere near as detailed
or cluttered as some of the more recent Disney live-action remakes
and therefore I considered that since the live-action remake of The
Lion King is scheduled for the next year, I should try to make my
poster more detailed and busier so that it would be conventional of
a contemporary Disney poster.

4. Despite the fact that I wanted to create a
detailed poster for The Lion King, I was
drawn to the idea of producing a
minimalist style design. This does not
necessarily mean that I would not be able
to create a detailed poster when you look
at for example, the Toy Story or The Good
Dinosaur posters that I have looked at as
my research, but rather I would be
incorporating a style that would be unique
and one which I feel would also target the
family audiences that the film would be
aimed at. From The Lion King example that
I have researched I can also see that the
motifs from the film such as the sun and
pride rock can still be implemented within
my design.