Personal Response
What is striking about this poster is that, although
extremely simplistic, it’s content is instantly recognisable – Homer Simpson,
one of the main characters from the Simpsons franchise takes centre stage. It
needn’t be flashy or complex to strike a gaze, as anybody who has seen and
enjoys the TV series this character stars in will recognise Homer and instantly
look to the poster. The knowledge of this character also strikes a sense of
humour in the poster – Homer is eating a Donut, and grease marks where the ‘O’
should be in ‘Movie’ indicate the origin of said Donut. The Yellow/White
gradient in the background of the poster is a hint towards both the colouring
of Homer, and also the trait of The Simpsons where Caucasian characters are
coloured with Yellow skin. This gradient is also very subtle, bringing out
Homer and making him the centre of attention. The line work on Homer helps
this. I feel that, all though simple, this poster is very effective at bringing
attention to the fact that there’s a Simpsons Movie, and also delivers some
humour very well too. That, and the illustration of Homer is nicely done.
Form
There are two strongly prominent colours on the poster;
Yellow and White, which are the colours of the illustration of Homer, and also
hint towards that Yellow skin factor of the whole Simpsons franchise. As these
are most common on the poster, the introduction of Browns and Pinks in the
Donut and Homer’s mouth provides contrast from the rest of the poster, and draw
attention to the humorous aspect of the piece. The style Homer is drawn in is
instantly recognisable, as it is the style of Matt Groening, the creator of the
franchise. The thick lines really bring out Homer and draw a lot of attention
to him, and help to aid the simplicity aspect of the poster. As a Film Poster,
it’s all around very effective at advertising the film, although being an
announcement poster, a lot of information is not provided (age rating, cast).
This said, one piece of information stands out – a release date – which likely
adds a level of excitement to the viewer. The Composition all centres around
Homer, making him the predominant item and main focus of attention.
Context and Content
The poster advertises ‘The Simpsons Movie’, the first
feature length film in the Simpsons franchise. And that’s about all the
information it gives, other that a release date – but that’s the beauty of it,
as it needn’t say more than ‘THE SIMPSONS MOVE, JULY 27’ to draw both attention
and gather some high expectations. The appearance of Homer and his activity in
the Poster (eating a Donut – on of his favourites), are both key to setting the
mood of the film – satire and humour. The poster keeps within the conventions
common amongst pieces like this, although it being an announcement poster, it
does leave information such as the cast and age rating out. If this wasn’t an
announcement poster, this would seem too vague, but the idea of an announcement
poster is to be vague, so as to gather some excitement for further information,
or maybe just for the film itself.
Process
The process used is very, very clean. It is very clear that this is performed digitally, as
there seems to be no real mistakes present – no wiggly lines, no mistakes in
shading, prim and proper fonts, etc. The text ‘M_VIE’ appears to have a stroke
and bevel added to it using tools found in Photoshop or Fireworks, due to a
constant size of the Bevel and Strokes on the lettering. Homer however seems to
be produced using drawing tools such as Illustrator or Photoshop, as although
his lines are curved and have decreasing size in their ends, again there seems
to be no real fault or loss of intensity in any colour or tone and also the
curves seem way too perfect to be done by hand. The grease mark however is very
accurate to a real grease mark a Donut would likely leave on a sheet of paper,
which leads me to believe that maybe that’s exactly
what it is, or at least what it was. The person who made this poster may have
simply scanned in a grease mark a real donut left on a sheet of paper, and used
Photoshop to edit it for use in the poster. Either that, or the grease mark has
been replicated using Digital brushes.
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