art direction: novemberdesigns by mikiedaniel

contents“this month’s designs have been more minimal, and artistic in nature. it’s interesting to look over past issues of md:artdirection and see an eveloution in design style and technique. enjoy.”

mikie says:

contentssesame street poster art

james bond: skyfallbombay sapphire artdrive minimal poster

milhouse artdoctor who poster

in time minimal posterlife’s too short poster

misfits poster

sesame street poster artever get struck by an idea? it just arrives and you have no idea how you thought of it, what inspired you or why it came to you. someone once said “a great idea is like falling in love, it just hits you” i have no idea who said it, maybe i said it, then forgot i said it...

this elmo poster is an example of being struck with an idea out of no-where. i like to try an implement as many ideas as i can. i think of a concept, start putting it together and see if it works out. there’s lots of ideas i have, that get started, before i realise they should have stayed in my head.

whilst making this elmo i realised that the rest of the sesame street cast could be used in the same style of poster.

i wanted to have bold colours, with subtle texture and let the character’s facial features do all the work.

i’ve ended up creating this visually striking set.

[uploaded october 23rd 2011]

james bond: skyfallso the new james bond was given a title. i took my old design (below) and added the skyfall logo. i dressed it up with some smoke and a bit of blue glow. seeing as their only just getting filming underway it’s hard to know what feel to give the design. however i am happy with this design.

[uploaded november 3rd 2011]

my previous ‘bond 23’ design

bombay sapphire art

another concept that has been knocking around my head for a while. the idea of making something from lots of little somethings. some peo-ple would call it art. if a pile of bricks or an unmade bed are called art then this is a bloody masterpiece.

but seriously i had no idea what to try this idea out with, so i just looked up from my laptop screen and saw a bottle of bombay sap-phire sat across the room from me, giving me the eye “draw me like one of your french girls” it said...

this is the result. to be fair it’s a good example of the uncertainty of where art ends and advertising begins.

[uploaded november 14th 2011]

drive minimal posterdrive instantly became one of those films that i put in my list of films that i like enough to watch more than once or twice. such a good film. visually it was great. anyone who checks out alt posters and fan post-ers will know that the internet is awash with hundreds of fan posters for this film.

i wanted to strip away all the glamour, and keep the iconic pink writ-ing from the promotional material. i chose to add the blood splatter as a reference to the more violent edge to film, particularly the elevator head stomp scene.

[uploaded november 7th 2011]

milhouse artmilhouse van houten… love him or hate him (he is not a meme) i’ve made some milhouse art in a similar style to my bombay sapphire art.i took it a step further, making milhouse out of milhouses made of milhouses (are you keeping up with this?)

the final result is very trippy. each little colour milhouse face that makes up the big face looks like this is detail...

[uploaded november 24th 2011]

doctor who postera basic fan art design, but i may adjust the design when some more information regarding the doctor who movie is released. i found the tardis art on deviantart (credit to coco1994).

after uploading this design i feel that there is a lot that can be done to this design using the concept as a template.

keeping the poster colour white was the most visually powerful choice to make the blue from the lettering stand out.

[uploaded november 27th 2011]

in time minimal poster

i made this poster just before i watched the film. it was a great film, timberlake is a good actor.

like other designs i’m not sure how i ended up reaching this final design. it just sort of happened. i obviously based the lcd style on the arm clocks that everyone has in the film.

i knew that i wanted to make this a minimal poster design so i only needed to make sure i got the font colour and glow just right and the poster would work well.

[uploaded november 10th 2011]

life’s too short posterlife’s too short starring warwick davis as a fictional version of himself & ricky gervais and stephen merchant making cameo appearances. the show has come under fire from critics for poking fun at small people. oh well.

with this design i wanted to highlight the size (or lack of) of warwick, by having a lot of negative space between him and the title. having war-wick only take up a small amount of the design also helps.

the black and white colour scheme matches warwick’s tux and also fits with the visuals of gervais & merchants previous stuff like the office & extras.

[uploaded november 20th 2011]

misfits posteri was late to the misfits party. i caught up with the first two series on e4 in time to watch the third series.

i used a memorable scene from the first series as an overlay for the logo. i chose to use the lightning style for the background to relate to ‘the storm’ that gives them their powers.

a lot of designs i’ve seen have focussed on the orange jumpsuits and having all the characters involved. i wanted to make something a bit different. why not alisha with the bottle?

[uploaded november 13th 2011]

thanks for reading... or just skimming

through and getting to this page.