Poster development and final

1. Matthew Teagle - De Montfort
University – New Media Design
Portfolio
Poster Development and Final Design

2. Poster Development
I began the design for my poster by getting the most important and
simple aspects of my product together. I used the magic wand tool in
photoshop to select and delete any unwanted parts from
the minimalist images and silhouettes that I used and also
to cut out the title of the film from the original poster.
I then developed this simple idea further by adding filling the canvas
with characters and motifs from the film. On the left hand side of the
canvas I had an adult Simba who acts as the protagonist in the film
standing triumphantly while the antagonist scar towers above him,
looking down on him as he represents the danger that looms over
Simba and Pride Rock throughout the narrative of the film and I felt
that this composition reflected that. The iconic shot from the film of
Rafiki holding Simba as a baby is almost a motif from the film, and
another aspect that I wanted to include. I placed this figure in front of
the sun, which was another motif of the film that I was eager to
include. In order to create the sun, I used the flare tool in illustrator and
then transferred the resulting shape into Photoshop. This allowed me
to create a minimalist effect for the sun, a completely circular shape, as
the ‘circle of life’ is within the film, that is detailed in a way that
makes it appear as though it is giving out light.

3. Poster Development
To further develop my poster, I realized that I needed to use my own title design rather
than using the original design for The Lion King’s title. The most important thing to
consider was that this design had to remain authentic and therefore I would need to
use a style that conveyed notions of Africa. I sketched out a few ideas and felt that I
had found a design that would work really well on my poster. The font that I used itself
is called ‘African’ and was similar to my original idea, so I therefore felt that this was a
good choice. When referring back to my research, I wanted to add more detail onto my
poster to comply with the busy design of the more contemporary examples of Disney
posters so I decided to add the silhouettes of birds flying across the skyline. I also
decided to move the sun down so that it appeared to be rising over Pride Rock while
bringing Rafiki further towards the left hand side of the poster, layering his back legs
behind the figure of Simba so it appeared as though he was emerging from between
him and his nemesis Scar. Looking at my design, I realized that the minimalist style
would work efficiently, however there was not enough detail on the characters, and I
saw an opportunity to do use textures on the characters in an attempt to combine
aspects of the original film and my original plan of a minimalist poster with aspects of
the upcoming live-action remake. In order to add these textures, I had to find images of
the textures that I wanted and drag them onto the photoshop image. I placed the
texture above the area that I wanted it to cover before changing the visibility settings
on the layers panel and using the magic wand tool to select the area that I wanted to
be textured. I then reset the visibility so that the area was now selected above the
texture and used the inverse setting from the ‘select’ dropdown before deleting the
unwanted part of the image to leave the shape of the selected image that was
textured. This gave each character more depth and detail. I didn’t necessarily have to
use textures that you would expect to see on the characters, I was able to experiment
with the textures to see which had the best effect on my design. I also used another
font that I felt conveyed many conventions of Africa for my tagline, which I chose to be
‘Hakuna Matata’, a phrase from the original film which has become a household phrase
since its release.

4. Poster Development
I continued to add detail to my characters, adding eyes
and mouths to each one so that they were recognizable
to audiences. The contrast between the textures used
and these features is something that I felt worked very
well. I also changed my Rafiki figure as the first image
that I used was difficult to edit, particularly with the
Baby Simba, whereas I was able to find one where I
could use the same textures as well as give Rafiki and
Baby Simba their precise facial features. I used some
photoshop effects to edit these characters, dropping
shadows behind the manes of Simba and Scar to add
more depth to their figures as well as adjusting the
vibrancy and contrast on Baby Simba so that it looked
as though the sunlight was hitting his fur in different
places. I also edited the title so that it appeared more
three-dimensional by using the ’Bevel and Emboss’ tool
and adding a slight inner glow, using the eyedropper
tool to pinpoint the colour of the background
for this glow so that the title blended more
with its backdrop.

5. Poster Development
The final things to include on my design were the company
credits at the bottom, which I placed over the base of the Pride
Rock silhouette where they stood out. My research also informed
my decision to include the Walt Disney logo as well as the logos
for Dolby, IMAX 3D and age certification. Adding these aspects
make my design more authentic as these are aspects that you’d
expect to find on other posters, and they all appear on the
posters that I looked at for my research. I added the cast names
along the top of the poster in a similar way that the Beauty and
the Beast poster in my research does and finally moved the
tagline so that it filled the space between the cast names and the
title. I used the eyedropper tool again to colour the tagline the
same as the inside of the sun and added a bevel to the text to
give it more depth. I used the gridlines and ruler to split my
poster into nine parts, using the rule of thirds to check that the
composition of my poster was balanced.

6. Final Design
My final poster design is heavily informed
by my research as well as unique in the
sense that the style is unusual. My original
aim following my research was to create a
detailed and busy poster for The Lion King,
incorporating the main motifs and
characters from the original film whilst also
looking forward to the live-action remake
and also using minimalist aspects.
I believe that my final design is
conventional of a Disney poster
whilst adopting a more
contemporary style and using the
standard layout of a film poster.