Sweet As A Peach

drama Illustrator movie movie poster photoshop Poster Design Roald Dahl

About The Project:

Every year the Performing Arts students write and perform their own take on a classic production. This years chosen production is Roal Dahl's James and the Giant Peach!

Along with the rest of the visual arts department, we in graphics were tasked with making graphic posters to promote the production!

With every project we do we are given a project brief that we need to analyse and take key points from. This is my brief summary showing what I believe to be the most important parts of our original client provided brief.

For our research, we watched the entire James And The Giant peach movie. This really helped me to gain ideas regarding what I can do in my designs.

*Please note: the following grid my appear differently depending on the device you are viewing this portfolio on due to its large size*

To better understand poster design, I put together a presentation all concerning what the key elements of a poster are, what makes a good poster and factors to consider when designing.

Over the past year I have put together some posters as a small hobby, all on different themes but of each poster type category.

Photography Poster

Typography Poster

Graphic Poster

To gain some inspiration for my own designs, I put together some mood boards on different themes: Graphic posters, James And The Giant Peach book images and movie images.

Shepard Fairey

Artist research is a great way to learn new skills and find new inspiration. I chose to research graphic and graffiti artist Shepard Fairey as I felt he best suits the requested design characteristics for my posters: Graphic, Colourful, Impactful, Eye-Catching and Extraordinary.

This is my response to Shepard Fairey. I aimed to create a very contradictory poster where it shows a Sad Clown but also shouts HAPPY.

To get my ideas out on paper so as to not forget them, I made some quick sketches.

Idea 1) taken from the New York scene in the movie - this uses the floodlights, buildings and peach to create a “cinematic” atmosphere. The floodlights shine up to the peach which is on top of the building... I believe the Empire State Building. This would incorporate the grainy effect my artist often uses, for the floodlights, and his use of silhouette, for the buildings.

Idea 2) ‘The Experiment’ starring ‘JAMES AND THE GIANT PEACH’, ‘8th December Crewe Campus 11am and 3pm’ and ‘Some Birds’. Coming to a poster near you soon...
Jokes aside, this idea is the idea that in no way related to Shepard Fairey. I simply just wanted to see if I could do something with a 5x5 modular grid.

Idea 3) I did actually really like this idea, it implements a lot of the collage aspect that Shepard Fairey produces within his work. Within the collage, I would include the names of all the cast for both production groups.

Idea 4) my personal favourite. This shows the peach floating around in the middle of The Atlantic Ocean (not specifically drawn as that ocean but it is the ocean in the story). One of the most famous scenes within the movie is James using seagulls to cause the peach to fly, so I thought here it would be cool to make it look like the string is attached to the title. This would take inspiration for my artists grainy effect he uses within certain designs as well as the bold colour choices.

I developed all of my sketches into what can be said to be “final pieces” to better visualise each idea and where it could go.

This is my colour palette for my final posters. I believe these colours work best for the young target audience as they are not overly bold or distracting - everything flows nicely and keeps the composition balanced.