I hadn’t made a poster on a romance one before, but always thought about designing one.
I started by imagining about what could I possibly create, I knew I needed something unique where the poster tells the story, this has and always will be so important in my design career and have always shown this within my work of concept designs.
I use two key principles that lay the foundation of graphic design - storytelling and imagination, those keys lay the foundation upon my creative decision making techniques that I apply within poster design.
Within my work I follow 5 simple steps towards creating the concept poster. I will be going through these steps with you below of how I created the poster 'All I See is Us'. So let me break the 5 points down, to understand what happens within my thought process when I create a graphic poster.
1. Overview - What the concept is (title, genre), why I chose it
2. Inspiration & Research - Mood board images or sketches, colours lighting, other posters
3. Design & Selective Decisions - Images, assets, fonts used and why
4. Mockup & Context - The final poster version including mockups of billboards
5. Final Touches & Reflection - Refinements, fonts adjustment (spacing, contrast, subtitle size), what I learned, what I can take into my next poster design.
Overview
The first stage of my thought process is the overview, I am now inside my thoughts, preparing the foundation of my poster design and visualising it within my mindset. This is the planning stage, I decide what I want, the behind the scenes, what genre I want I'll be working on..its like a whole overall birds-eye view of the entire structure of my design process.
Genre: Romance
Description - a couple deeply in love, on a journey, happy, full of excitement
Title - this is where I thought deeply and finally came up with 'All I See is Us' it's about them, saying its all about Us, this felt like the perfect concept for a love story, travelling together, exploring their surroundings, driving a retro convertible classic car, maybe pink or red, something unique, that looks classic. I imagined the setting, somewhere in California, where the sun shines so bright and warm.
I am thinking about the colour grading for the poster...although this is too early for that, but however I enjoy considering it...this stage is all about brainstorming, and I love this step because it's where a concept begins to shape.
Inspiration & Research
This is where the fun begins, the stage of inspiration and research, but however, be mindful of what you want, not what other posters look like. Originality is the key to creativity; don't just follow what others have done, be inspired to what you can achieve in your own space of design.
I use Envato a lot, I'm a subscriber, with access to thousands of licensed images, fonts and assets. I also use Adobe Stock, including fonts that integrate directly to my Adobe apps. Having both are important, gives me a strong tool kit for sourcing materials. Without it, it would be harder deciding which images truly support my concept posters.
I started by typing inside Envato's search bar; 'man and woman in love inside car, happy, in love' so many results, this is where I take time to explore, but respecting the clock, but also giving time to what feels right. Having good research, patience and quality of speed by spending it wisely, especially when your on a deadline with a client.
Then finally something caught my eye...I just knew it was the right one. Maybe your wondering to ask me ...'how do you know when it's right?' For me it's a mix of instinct and detail, the quality of the image, the framing, whether its strong enough to fill the entire poster background. I check the colouring, shade, lighting.
Number of important factors that you have to consider when choosing an image, if the image is very weak...then you know deep down that you will have to spend time to adjusting the image to your requirement, but if you know that's the perfect one...then you have a good feeling about it, I believe follow your emotions when deciding on a image, don't just rush it to make a decision, just think over it and observe it, because that decision you take is just as important as the final piece of your creativity.