Lost in Translation
– RolePoster designer
– DateWinter 2023
– SpecsAbobe InDesign
I created this poster to promote the film ‘Lost in Translation’ directed by Sophia Coppola. Prior to creating the poster, I watched the film whilst taking note of colour palettes. Most scenes in the film are underexposed and cool, consisting of dark shades of blue, pink and green. I wanted to reflect this in my final poster.
My main objective when designing this poster was to encapsulate the feelings of isolation and incongruency that comes with relocating to a new country – sentiments evoked throughout the film. I achieved this by using type emotively and sympathetically to the core themes of
the film.
Initial sketches
These are my initial 10 sketches. I received feedback on all of them from my classmates, which assisted me in the process of choosing three to refine and ultimately digitally recreate. My primary intention when sketching was to capture the aforementioned themes of the film emotively through the type.
Initial design #01
This was my first attempt at designing the poster. The first learning experience was ensuring that I captured the genre of the film. Instead of designing a poster that captured the romantic genre of the film through, I inadvertently designed a poster that looked like it was for a cop, investigation drama.
Initial design #02
Initial design #02
This was my second attempt at designing the poster. I attempted to resolve the dissonance between the genre of the film and it’s design by using colour more meaningfully. I quickly found that the blue and pink was overly stereotypical and failed to capture the implicit themes of the film. However, the idea introduced me to being more dynamic with my placement of type.
Initial design #03
This was my third attempt at designing the poster, being my most successful attempt at capturing the core theme of incongruency throughout the film. The colours however had no meaningful relationship to the film, so I consulted my colour pallette research from the beginning of the project.
Final poster
This is my final poster. I created the billing block located at the bottom using the typeface ‘Steel Tongs’ to better replicate an officially commissioned film poster. I chose to use the typeface Akzidenz Grotesk Roman Bold for the rest of the poster as feedback revealed that the arrangement of the lettering was reminiscent of Swiss typography. I therefore chose to use a typeface that was commonly used by Swiss typographers, Akzidenz Grotesk.
Boldness was an important factor when designing the poster, as I knew that I wasn’t going to incorporate any images, so the typeface had to work on its own, especially considering that I was going to be typesetting most of the characters on their own line.
After my final feedback session I decided to make the information within the poster (billing block, names of actors and directors) white to create better contrast. I also decided to move the names of the two main actors in the film closer together to be better distinguished from the emotive type.
Boldness was an important factor when designing the poster, as I knew that I wasn’t going to incorporate any images, so the typeface had to work on its own, especially considering that I was going to be typesetting most of the characters on their own line.
After my final feedback session I decided to make the information within the poster (billing block, names of actors and directors) white to create better contrast. I also decided to move the names of the two main actors in the film closer together to be better distinguished from the emotive type.