This week I learned about book jacket and movie poster design. Some of the videos and articles I read are below so you can enjoy them as well. (Not all of them could be linked)

Going in, I was interested to hear what professionals had to say about their work. Visual art is something that feels so abstract and illusive, but there are formulas that only the artists know. In Chip Kidd’s TED Talk and Between the Lines interview he briefly discussed how to approach a story from a design standpoint. He explained that the designer’s job is to distill a story to it’s fundamental pieces and then try to relate those to an audience. Movie poster and TV title designers seemed to agree: a designer’s job is to attract readers or viewers.

There are many ways to convey an idea or emotion through book jackets and movie posters. James Verdesoto explained how different colors are tied to genres and the purposes they serve. For example, red text and a white background are often used for comedies, especially in the early 2000s. These colors help to focus the viewer on one element of the poster, which is usually a staged photograph featuring key characters. Posters with yellow backgrounds signal that the movie is indie or otherwise has a small production budget, as yellow quickly catches people’s eyes. He explained how many indie posters get inspiration from vintage posters and punk rock graphics.

Graphic design has many tactics to gain attention, but ultimately a design is personal to the story, time, and artist creating it. I think it’s important not to forget the care put into posters and book jackets. While there are trends and methods to catch eyes, this work is first and foremost about the stories and the people behind those stories.

I really loved these videos, it really was engaging in a sense of being able to break down piece by piece and went to the professionals for help. I really found fascinating was the color schemes with all the movie posters in the Vanity Fair video! When he was showing a ton next to each other it was shocking to see how similar they all truly are. After watching that video I looked up if all of the Disney Princess’s movie and it is cool to look at because it seems to pair the colors from the dress and their hair to the background. for Example, Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty have pink dresses and blonde hair and both of the backgrounds are blue and green.

With the Vox video I also really loved because Stranger Things is one of my favorite shows to watch just because it is such a time jump to a time I wasn’t born in but my mom was growing up around that time and its cool to watch a thriller and also learn what my mom grew up with. I think it was really awesome with the typography pair with that they had a vision with and how they executed it to the wonderful masterpiece it is! They used book covers they loved in their time to make it happen but with the video with the book cover artist, it was cool to see how creative he is and how to pair the story to the cover without using too much negative space with the letters. I am not so much a book fan myself so I normally don’t pay attention to book covers because they do have they same kind of style in my opinion.

I think these were really cool ways to break down a graphic design for a movie, book, or show!

-Reese Kubricki

Watching and reading all of the articles and videos related to designing of covers was very interesting! You don’t really think about the thoughts behind the cover or the poster or the intro because you become too focused on the actual media, that you just go immediately into it without a second thought.

It really made me think about the whole idea of “don’t judge a book by its cover,” which I always thought was so interesting to me. Personally, I think you should judge books by their covers. If you aren’t judging it by the cover, you are just opening a book or a show or something just for the sake of watching it. I feel like you have to acknowledge that cover to understand the media, to understand what you’re getting into.

It’s almost like first impressions, which we talk a lot about in Social Psychology. Do they matter, and if they do, why do they matter? Why do we make them? Are they fair? Are our first impressions right?

It’s human nature to make those first impressions, but the honest answer to the other questions is that it depends. Sometimes they matter, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they are fair, sometimes they aren’t. Sometimes they are right, sometimes they are not. It’s situational! And I feel like this applies to covers too! Because we never can be sure if the first impression is right, I think it’s important to not rely on first impressions, but I also think that it is completely fair and natural to make that first impression.

There is so much work put into designing these covers to give you that first impression. In a sense, the designer is retelling the story through another format. If you don’t like that telling, you may not like the book or the show or whatever media it is. But, you also may love the story despite not liking the cover. Why does it matter?

We make these assumptions and impressions so fast, too fast for us to even realize. You can look at a cover once and immediately decide your thoughts on it. But that makes me wonder, why?

Then that also makes me wonder, why are some covers easier to judge or quicker to be judged?

I just think it’s really important to acknowledge how designers choose to retell these stories in ways that can speak to the audience. The design is the first impression, they have to make it speak out and stand out towards the audience. They have to be so important that they are judged quickly, that attention is brought to them, and I think it’s okay if that attention is good or bad. Attention is attention and publicity is publicity.

I think my thoughts are kind of all over the place, but this is just so interesting to me on so many different levels! I personally love judging books by covers and making my own thoughts and impressions because then I like to see how they’ve changed by the time I’ve actually consumed the media! It’s like a journey to me!

It’s been interesting to read the article and watch multiple videos on graphic design guru Chip Kidd in order to gain insight into his career and ideas. Chip’s ability to come up with all these diverse visual styles while making it appear easy was astounding throughout the Ted Talk. Even though I’m not a professional designer, I could comprehend his explanations of each design, which were nonetheless incredibly imaginative. Every design he discussed and displayed highlighted its backstory. This certainly has to do with our digital storytelling course; like Chip’s work, everything we do here should have a backstory in addition to being a beautiful visual design. All of Chip’s ideas and viewpoints broadened my understanding of design and made me understand that it’s more than simply an image or cover; each design shapes my perception and tells a story.

The second movie cover design YouTube video I saw gave me a very fascinating behind-the-scenes peek at how meticulously movie covers are created to provide a synopsis of the film. As discussed in the video, the color schemes and every minute element help to convey the genre of the film as well as the message it is attempting to convey. As an avid moviegoer, I never gave much thought to the narrative or message conveyed by the front cover. However, after seeing this video, I can truly appreciate all of the work that goes into making a movie’s visual cover. A movie poster emphasizes the significance of a target audience and harmonizes the cover with the film’s theme, reinforcing Chip Kidd’s theory that design is a language that communicates with the audience rather than just an image.

Watching the creative process behind Stranger Things’ throwback title sequence was a fascinating video, especially for someone who loves the show as much as I do. Imaginary Forces purposefully created a design that evoked a retro 1980s vibe by carefully selecting the typography, colors, and other visual components, as they stressed in the video. Many people have praised the show for its title sequence, calling it an impeccable nod to the 1980s. The design “transports” viewers to a certain moment and evokes those feelings, making it a prime example of how powerful design can be. As Chip mentioned, design needs to be done strategically, and the designer needs to have a clear idea of what they want to convey.

So, the first video that I watched was the video by Vanity Fair and it was a really interesting watch. It actually got me pretty interested in the reasoning for why movie poster designers decide to use certain colors or fonts. For example, if the poster designer is designing a poster for a comedy, they are more likely to use a white background with red letters because that is what is represented by comedy films these days. The white background allows the viewer to put all of their attention on the photo that is used for the poster along with the movie name that is in a bright red color. Using blue in a poster indicates that the movie is most likely a thriller and usually has a character running down the street to indicate action and thriller as the movie genres. If the movie is also bringing in more technology, then there might be some yellow and green in the poster as well along with the blue. The use of the color yellow is more prominent in smaller films and films that independent because the marketing budget for these films is a lot less than the big firm movies. Using yellow is considered a cheap way to catch the eye of the viewer and by using it it brings more attention to the movie poster causing these smaller films to sometimes bring more viewers than they would if they used a different color for the background. Moving on, the black, white, and orange color schemes are often used to create posters for actions films. The main protagonist is usually in black and white with the title of the movie being in orange of having an orange hint behind it to help promote the masculinity of the film. This color scheme is a way of speaking to the younger audience and moves away from the traditional clutter of action movie posters. Blue and orange is also a common color scheme for movie posters with the blue being the main point of the poster while using the orange or yellow to lead the viewers eyes through the poster. It also can be used in a way where the “blue world” is lead into the “orange world” which is another way of using color to show the different sides of the movie or the battle between good and evil.

Another video that I watched this week was how Stranger Things got its title design for the Netflix show. They wanted to create a show title that could not be used in any other film or tv show when being used for the title sequence. In other words, they wanted the title to be and feel very original. One thing I found really interesting was that the title designers wanted to cast imperfections on the title sequence to make it look more gritty. This surprised me because it would not make sense to me for title designers to purposely make the title have imperfections because their whole job is to perfectly curate a title for the show. One of the tactics they used for this idea was using a Kodalith that would allow them to shine light through the back of the letters to give more emphasis on one area of the title where the light was being shined. This allowed them to create that gritty, old-fashioned look they were going for. I thought it was really cool in terms of the way they went about creating the title, because they used both physical and digital means to create a title in a world where almost everything is done digitally. I think that this method definitely helped set them apart from other tv shows, because it allows them to be more creative, organic, and unique with their ideas. I enjoyed watching this video because it really showed me how these titles were being made and why so much goes into just one title to try and make the tv show or film that much better.

Finally, I got to watch a interview with Chip Kidd this week titled “Between the Lines: Chip KIdd.” This interview really gave me a good idea and understanding of the connection that exists between design and storytelling. This interview was conducted with Kelly Corrigan and she tries to uncover the experiences that influence the works of Kidd. She tries to gain insight on what sort of information and ideas authors come up with and use to try and create different forms of media for the world to see and enjoy. Kidd explains that he works mainly a book cover designer and sometimes edits graphic novels. He makes it clear that the work he does as a book cover designer is not only very important to him, but also the public, because he aims to capture the essence of the story through just one title page where the images and words come together to try and entice the reader into reading the novel. He says that when trying to come up with a cover for a book he needs to “distill” the book to its “most essential parts” so that he can use those essential parts and ideas to come up with a design that covers the basic idea of the story, and as a result, it allows the reader to also get a quick glimpse into the main idea of the book. This job is very intuitive he says because the titles and book covers can be so different than one another. He states that it is very important to try and come up with a cover for the novel because without one we do not even get the smallest idea of what the novel may be trying to convey and without a cover a book is never truly finished. He also makes a very strong point about storytelling in graphic novels and comics, and states that what is happening between the panels, is just as important, if not more important than what is happening within the panels. He makes the statement that movies and films are somewhat more difficult to understand even though there is less going on because the movie determine the pace at which the viewer is gaining and understanding different pieces of information from within the movie whereas in novels and comics, the reader is free to decide at which pace they want to continue at to fully gain insight on the main ideas of the piece. The main takeaway from the interview for me was that book jackets are very unique, the designer must have a full understanding of the novel so that they can accurately convey that same message in the cover of the book. It is also very important because that is the first thing that people see when they pick up a book and so the cover must make them actually want to read the book. I enjoyed watching this interview because it gave me a deeper understanding of the connection between design and storytelling.