Week 10 | Poster Thumbnails

Since I am actually a week behind, this'll be my second post this week in order for me to catch up.

This week, we are getting started on our posters - How exciting! We had to sketch up a few thumbnails for our poster so here's mine:

Thumbnail 1

This first one is heavily inspired by art nouveau. The frame around the fairy is made up of torn spider webs at the bottom and the flowers of the product at the top. This not only hints at the tvc but also shows what the product is capable of doing. I also plan on adding art nouveau embellishments around the top half, with a frame around the product name at the top.

Thumbnail 2

This thumbnail looks more cinematic. It's inspired by old Disney storybook covers and this Ella Enchanted movie poster. Here the focus is completely on the wings framed by a circle of the product's flowers and torn spiderwebs. It is quite symmetrical, so it does look quite stiff. I do find that it looks more like a movie poster than a product poster so I'm not sure.

Thumbnail 3

This is also inspired by art nouveau but I made the shapes much more organic. I removed the spiderwebs, so the product is framing everything and becomes the main focus. Here, I also added the tagline "Free yourself from any sticky situation" to take up the empty space.

Thumbnail 4

This is more inspired by vintage pinup posters. Here the product is still framing the character but now the wings are sideways. The character is also holding the product itself which reinforces the idea. I actually really like this one but I think it is limited by the portrait orientation and would work much better in landscape.

These were the four initials thumbnails. I asked people on my Instagram to vote for their favourite thumbnail and also asked opinions from my lecturers. The results were quite mixed, with Thumbnail 1 getting the most votes, from both my followers and the lecturers. But I also received a lot of feedback that the pose in Thumbnail 1 was quite stiff. That’s when my lecturer, David, gave me the suggestion to put her in a situation of peril - escaping from the web. Not only would that scene make it clear what exactly the product does, it would also make it more dynamic.

This was the first sketch of the new pose. I really liked it as it showed one of the wings still stuck to the web while the other had already broken free, showing the process of the product at work. However, the expression still looked a little too calm.

This led me to my final thumbnail:

Rather than a scared expression, I decided to go with a smile, to show her confidence in the product. The composition is quite similar to Thumbnail 1 but a lot more cleaned up. I also added the tagline to make the selling point of the product even clearer.

Coming up with a thumbnail for my poster ended up being much more time-consuming than I had anticipated but I think it was all well worth it. What do you think of the final thumbnail?

Thanks for reading!

19 March 2022