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HiResLeague, Round 3. Results and comments.
Unfortunately we had a couple of entries that were unable to complete on time. Therefore the winner of that battle will automatically progress.
Judges Scores
Bunny Dojo
JollyRoger
Kernie
Paris
Entry
Total Score
1st
xshoty
95
99
100
88
382
2nd
Antistatic
94
92
95
88
369
3rd
bpmford
93
92
90
82
357
4th
Pytlaczek
83
86
91
86
346
5th
Speedz0r
85
79
83
76
323
6th
Jazzy
73
81
81
72
307
So it is down to 3, for the semi-finals. And this time round, they will have to make a cover for a movie that involves Hans Zimmer or Steven Spielberg!
xshoty (automatically progressed)
Antistatic v bpmford
Here are the judges scores and comments.
Bunny Dojo
Entry
Comment
Score
xshoty
This design is very impressively layered and full of crowd-pleasing excitement. So much excitement can make the cover feel overloaded in places. For instance, the title treatment is overwhelmed by its surroundings. The color effect on the front and tight cropping give the burnt egg frame a metallic look; the natural coloring from the original poster would really help to make it clear that we are looking at an egg. Similarly, on the back it just looks like scorched parchment. The vibrant red of your primary back image is wonderful. You have strong craftsmanship overall, but some of the little things seem rushed. A few of the cutouts glow as "close enough" rather than being precise, and your technical specs list the film as being from 2005 and running 200 minutes. That stills area is incredible.
95
Antistatic
Your mood on the front is excellent. That blending works nicely, and the rich midnight blue color is very appealing. I wish you had matched the front's style and precision more closely for the blended images on the back-top, as they are a little muddy. The bar of stills is solid, although not up to the glimpses of brilliance on your front work. The preponderance of fonts makes it look as though different people worked on this cover. Thin, Bold, Condensed, Extended, Italic. Eurostile, Trade Gothic, Gotham, Futura, etc. Tightening that up to just a couple of families/styles would make the cover more cohesive. The box behind your title on the spine looks a bit bland compared to the texture and color of the box on the front. Similarly, the straight gray and white back boxes feel under-styled compared to the front. Gray-blue or navy might have worked better for your template elements than black. Overall, this looks like a collaboration between a good designer and a borderline ingenious one.
94
bpmford
This cover is really rich in character. Personality-packed elements such as the inventive bar code-holding dinosaur and the warped "Blu-ray Jurassic Features" are lovable, while skewing toward campy. You've clearly put significant work into placement and enriching every inch of the design. The textures over-powered you a little on the front, as the characters unfortunately read more "smudged" than "illustrated," and the rock area behind the dinosaur is incongruously oversharp. The actors' names seem an unnecessary distraction. On the back credits, be careful not to split up a person's name (Vincent... D'Onofrio). Your overall composition is very nice, and the mix of "epic" and "silly" is a rather brilliant and somewhat accurate showcase of the film, but the cover edges more toward Ray Harryhausen than Steven Spielberg (or Colin Trevorrow).
93
Speedz0r
Your front is very nicely done, especially your interaction with the title. This would probably thrive in Blu-ray dimensions. A little extra fine-tuning around Michelangelo and Donatello's feet and more light in the background to help the title and turtles stand out could further strengthen your composition. Because the spine text is all the same size, your admirably innovative solution to the title unfortunately renders as "Teenage Ninja Out of the Mutant Turtles Shadows." The back elements crave more harmony: Huge, angled, purple Casey Jones and Megan Fox don't fit with straight, normally-colored Bebop and Rocksteady. The stills row is quite stylish. The canister is a clever idea, making it larger would help text legibility and give it more legitimacy as an element of the design. The neon synopsis is unreadable. Be careful to fill out your template entirely: "Copyright 2011... XXXXXXXXXXX".
85
Pytlaczek
This is an intriguing, atmospheric cover. Having the ambition to create a grand-scale design is a great place to start, but the paper effect distracts from your vision. On the back stills area, for example, there are so many brushes and effects on display that the idea you've put so much work into gets muffled. For a movie like this, I understand the motivation behind wanting to make each element really strong, but too much bulk (across text especially) and heavy processing can weigh down a cover. The images are well-selected, and there are many nicely done cutouts. I respect the work you've done trying to elevate the original poster and make your version even more powerful, and I'm glad that your unique touches are able to shine through.
83
Jazzy
Your image choices for the three stills on the back are lovely. Outside of that, perhaps you were rushed to finish or just nervous, but I cannot sense your enthusiasm or effort on this design as a high-level competition entry. The three featured animals on the front have no interaction with each other or the background. There is no apparent reasoning behind relegating the heroes of the film to the back or applying a painting effect to the background. Between the searing (and inconsistent) neon greens and the white-on-sky-blue synopsis, much of your supporting text is painful to read. For a bright and inventive kids' movie, the bottom third of your back cover is plain white text on a plain black background. On a technical level, the title treatment, logos, credits, and cutouts are proficient, but the lack of any concept or any sense of joy is really disheartening.
73
JollyRoger
Entry
Comment
Score
xshoty
99
bpmford
92
Antistatic
92
Pytlaczek
86
Jazzy
81
Speedz0r
79
Kernie
Entry
Comment
Score
xshoty
Originality: Outstanding use of resources, textures, font use, color, and layout. Beautiful.
Quality: Excellent quality all around. If I'm nitpicking, watch out for some minor typography issues… Synopsis font is a bit difficult to read, use simple fonts for paragraphs (read up on Text Fonts vs. Display Fonts for more details). Color contrast between special features text and background causes some words to disappear into wood texture behind them. Video and Audio specs text is a bit too small, might be difficult to read when printed. Again... I'm nitpicking here.
Skill: Superb skills on display... I'm struggling to find anything to critique on this cover... I love it.
Suitability: Perfectly fits the bright, colorful tone of the film.
100
Antistatic
Originality: Front montage, spine, and top portion of back cover are unique and original. I particularly like the layout of the synopsis and special features, barcode, and spine design.
Quality: Great image quality and nice, crisp text. Watch out for super-thin fontfaces like the one used on the "From Visionary Director" text, it can become difficult to read at small point sizes (same goes for font used on billing block). Rolling Stone critic quote blends into background in some places (a 25% opacity drop shadow usually fixes that). Left-justify synopsis text and adjust text to avoid widows ("survivors" being on its own line). Read up on widows/orphans in typography if you are unsure what I mean.
Skill: Excellent skills at work on this cover. Some elements in montage tend to blend together in places (particularly the group shots at the bottom of both the front and back montage... make a hard cutout around heads of characters instead of using a feathered brush mask).
Suitability: Design perfectly fits with tone of film.
95
Pytlaczek
Originality: Nice layout and design, layout of text/tagline on front cover is quite original, as is the spine design. Back layout is fairly standard. Synopsis feels pasted in empty space with little regard for how it interacts with the rest of the design; too much negative space surrounding synopsis.
Quality: Some medium-res images take the quality down a notch (particularly on Chloe on front, spine, and back). Special features font is too thick, especially when considering there is no punctuation or other organization to differentiate the list of features (it looks like a blob of text... organize it in some way for better readability). Some slight issues of contrast between text and background in some places, mainly special features and billing block.
Skill: Some great skills here. My lower scores on this cover are a bit unfair and are only because I feel other entries had a slight edge on this cover. This is a solid design with a few minor flaws that I'm sure will be fixed on the designer's future efforts.
Suitability: Seems to fit the tone of the film well.
91
bpmford
Originality: Some interesting and original ideas here, unfortunately the execution is a bit lacking. On front, the dino ripping through the cover is difficult to see due to overuse of textures, grunge, and a lack of contrast between elements. On the back, the T-Rex holding the barcode is a unique idea, but too silly and playful for the tone of this film. The layout of the back cover is a departure from the typical retail look, which I appreciate.
Quality: At first glance, this looks like a great quality cover, but then I examine it further and look at in full-res, and some flaws become more apparent. Unfortunately, this cover is an explosion of textures, monochrome, grunge, and filters, resulting in a cluttered feeling, lack of a significant focal point, and a difficulty to differentiate between foreground and background elements. Overuse of filtered images, particularly on characters on the front cover. Grunge texture on back makes thin font a bit difficult to read. Predominantly brown/tan/umber color palette makes it difficult to create a focal point based on color values and also blends images with background in a number of places.
Skill: The designer clearly has skills, but unfortunately relied too heavily on filters and textures that ultimately create a jumble of elements that never quite work overall.
Suitability: The majority of the cover fits the tone of the film, but the goofy T-Rex holding the barcode is too whimsical for this particular movie. It's a cute idea, but doesn't even fit with the relatively "serious" tone of the rest of the cover.
90
Speedz0r
Originality: Fairly standard layout and arrangement of elements. Spine title is an interesting aspect, and I like the angled front design.
Quality: Good image quality and nice masking on all characters. Remove layer styles on synopsis, logos and legals. Synopsis text difficult to read due to contrast issues between text and background image. Bevel on taglines and spine title makes text a bit difficult to read. Special Features text is quite small, organize list of features to better distinguish between items (it's turning into a blob of words). Brighten levels on turtles on front cover (for a film in which they come "out of the shadows," they are rather dark compared to the city background).
Skill: This designer has great potential. Some original ideas, great quality of images and masking, and a solid (if somewhat standard) layout. With more time and experience, many of the technical flaws of this cover will be rectified, I'm sure.
Suitability: Fits the tone of the film.
83
Jazzy
Originality: Standard retail layout with colorful imagery. Difficult to speak more about originality, as I understand this cover was a rush job (gotta remember to pay attention to the rules of the comp, buddy!).
Quality: Images are well-masked and quality of resources is good. Remove drop shadow from synopsis, shift the whole synopsis up a bit (to avoid the mountains in background), and put text in a darker color to help it stand out from the light sky background.
Skill: Would love to see what this cover could have been had it not been made so quickly. It's difficult to evaluate skill when taking this information into account. What is done is done well, for what it is.
Suitability: Bright and colorful, fits the tone of the film.
81
Paris
Entry
Comment
Score
xshoty
Front
• The TT is too obscured?
• I like the vegetation at the top!
• “Chuck†in yellow is too light and isn’t popping off of the background
• The characters are too bright and desaturated while the background is more vibrant and interesting
• The bottom wood should be darker that everything behind it so it draws less attention
Spine
• The burning effect makes the layering unclear of what’s on top and whats below
Back
• Quote is too obscured
• I like the warp wood in the bottom right of the composition
• The darkened wood under the SF text makes it harder to read
Overall
I think the front seems too static for a movie poster about flying birds? I wish the design was pushed more.
88
Antistatic
Front
• Unfinished masking on Chris Evans’ hat (white edges)
• “FROM VISIONARY DIRECTOR†is too light over white
• I love that you used a concentric composition!
Spine
• I wish the TT box had the same gradient touch as the front
Back
• Beware “widows†in paragraphs and central justifying
• The back composition should have more similar values with the front?
Overall
This is one go the cleanest covers in the comp
88
Pytlaczek
Front
• I wish the front veered father way from the poster?
Back
• The two back characters should have the same rim lighting as the two in front
• I LOVE how detailed you made the stills area
• Your composition is off to a good start - make sure to have objects in the distance have lighter black values than what’s in front
Overall
The back is the strongest aspect. If it had a more cohesive color scheme, it would be stellar
86
bpmford
Front
• The tear on the front is really showing me off because it’s too soft to immediately register as paper?
• I really don’t think the filter texture adds to the aesthetic
• The sharp mountains are too far removed from the film’s locations to feel right?
Spine
• I like the way the characters are composed!
Back
• The names of the raptors break the theme of the rest of the cover - it’s too comic book related?
Overall
The cover does express tension and fear, but I’m really the saturation of the movie itself?
82
Speedz0r
Front
• The dog effect is hindered by the dark black values on the character’s legs? Spine
• The spine image should has as much work done to it as the front and back
or it feels basic and stands out?
• The way the title is played out, it looks like its for 3 different movies?
Back
• Special Features are way too small
• I’m really liking the texture on the credit text
• The synopsis is hard to read with the busy background and saturated color
• “Copyright © 2011 Paramount Pictures.†it should be 2016?
• “All Rights Reserved. XXXXXXXXXXX"
Overall
This is nearing the spirit of the movie, one more pass and it’ll be closer!
76
Jazzy
Front
• There are no main characters on the front
• White edge around characters
Back
• White edges around characters
• Beware drop shadows on paragraphs - it makes it hard to read
• The characters in the top right look like they’re from a video game? It really isn’t fitting in
Overall
I wish the cover better rejected the movie and it’s characters
72
It has been a fun competition!
