To begin with, in the Design 101 tutorial, I wrote down potential names for the poster. I found this task came naturally to me and did not require that much thought to come up with lots of interesting names. My 3 favourite were 'The Samurai's Blade', 'Steadfast' and 'Honoured Pasts'. From these, I created 3 thumbnail sketches for potential posters for each of the 3 titles.
From there I created several compositions of elements of the posters I liked the most. I choose to go with the composition with the red sun in the centre, and the two main elements of the poster to overlap with the circle.
This was my first draft of the movie poster. Once I had everything in place I decided I did not like the composition and felt all the elements were fighting for the attention of the viewer, and that the none of the elements were dynamic enough.
My second draft of the movie poster had a lot more potential. I decided that I would experiment with having a landscape within a koi fish to create a more dynamic poster. Even though this poster was a lot better, the monochromatic colour scheme and the lack of contrast of the title to the main element meant that all the elements were fighting for the viewer’s attention and that there is very little hierarchy in the poster.
My third draft of the movie poster was even more dynamic, with paint splatters and a larger more prominent title. Although still relatively monochromatic, having a background with a different hue helps both the title and the red sun and samurai stand out. The hierarchy in this poster is more clearly represented by having the main element above the title. The centre alignment helps create a sense of balance. But having the samurai off centre helps draw the viewers attention to him.
After receiving feedback from people on draft 2 and 3, it seemed that people prefered how unique the koi and samurai composition was and that they were more likely to remember the first poster than the second poster. But they also said the colour scheme with the red draws your initial attention better. So I combined elements of the two posters to create this draft here. However, there were still a few issues with hierarchy.
This is my final poster. I added the simplistic ying-yang to symbolise balance within the movie. As well as this, I changed the move title to be monochromatic so the viewer’s attention is immediately drawn to the main element of the koi. The koi in Japan symbolises good luck which would play heavily into the theme of the movie. Centre alignment of all the elements creates a sense of balance. The proximity of the text to the koi helps create continuity between all the elements.