Posters have a long and rich history documenting everything from boxing matches to Bollywood films, the Soviet Revolution to punk, encouraging young men to join the army to persuading women to buy bras. There are many collections in books in museums and galleries and on the internet. Find out more about your own particular areas of interest. Make notes in your learning log.

OCA Graphic Design: Core Concepts

For this research point I decided to research video game posters. I thought this will be interesting as I love games and wanted to see what the posters for some of my favourites look like and if they are effective or not.

I browsed this collection of video game posters:

Skyrim is one of my all time favourite games. The poster is iconic, showing the Dragonborn and some settling dust and a ominous tentacle around him. It sums up the game quite well and shows the mood of it pretty well too. I like this a lot!

I love Pokemon GO. It’s such a great and innovative game that got millions of people excited when it first came out in 2016. While the game never looked so beautiful, this poster just makes you want to check it out. looking for that adventure. I think it is beautifully captures the essence of what the game is about. That wanderlust and exploration. This poster was created by Justin Luu. I first thought it was an official poster I have never seen, but it’s actually fan made.

It’s not for a game but rather for a game controller but this old advertisement poster from the 90s is so good. I really love the styling of this poster. I think the headline makes it really effective. The copy is just pure marketing blabber but it works because it is appealing to a certain kind of person who always want to win.

Beyond Two Souls is a story driven choose your adventure game starring Ellen Page. I played this game through in a couple of days, it is like binging on a series, but you get to choose what happens next. I think the poster is quite effective because it shows a long road ahead on the bottom side, which makes you wonder what will happen in the game, and the top half shows the main protagonist in details showing the quality of graphics you can expect from the game. In fact the styling and layout of this poster is more like a movie poster, which eludes to the fact that this game is very story driven.

I really like the above ad for Crash Bandicoot Warped. It just sums up the mood of the game so well. The Crash B shaped hole in the ground shows that you are in for a ridiculous and funny experience. I think it’s a simple but effective ad/poster.

I found the above advert very funny and provocative. I think this is effective because it stops you in your tracks. The jarring red tint to the image further accentuates the uncomfortable setting of the photo. I think the is a really great ad.

Art posters

Besides the advertising posters there are countless art posters that have been made for various games. I wanted to look into these as well to see what conclusions I can draw from these.

I think this is a great poster. I find the muted simple colour scheme really pleasing. It also nicely communicates what the game is about which is important with any poster, in my opinion. I like the sense of wonder in this piece. You can’t help but ask yourself what may lie beyond the horizon.

This poster is also really cool. I like how it simply sums up the game. The bloodstain that looks like a brain but also have small spikes on it that eludes to something horrific and disturbing. I like how the poster is graphic without showing any explicit details of the game. The old paper texture just enforces the uncomfortable feeling a little further, and makes the poster stand out.

This artwork appeared on the front of the cover of the game’s special edition. I love the colour of this poster and the duality blue and red which shows the 2 sides of the main protagonist. I also like that it creates a very strong visual composition where the sword in the middle is a nice focal point and everything else just recedes into the background.

Reflection

In this part I looked at some game related posters to see what works and what doesn’t. I think perhaps I limited myself a little too much by only looking at game posters, but I found this research interesting nevertheless. I will carry on with this and collate posters I like to use as inspirational material when designing my own.