I have put together a promotional poster for the upcoming film Cleric. We wanted a soviet constructivist design aesthetic for the text, so instead of using a canned font I drew the CLERIC logotype custom for this project. Call it retro-futuristic avant garde soviet constructivism with a dose of unsettling lines to echo the film’s string-theory timeline warpage. Yeah, that doesn’t make any damn sense to me, either. The rest of the film will have even more references to the soviet-esque aesthetic subtly scattered throughout. I have plans for a few other posters in other styles, some leaning towards graphic novel, others towards illustrated propaganda poster. We’ll see how much time I can take to make them, being completely swamped in post-production hell right now. Visual effects take a loooong time to do right!
branding
Previsualization: CJ Building Sign
Before construction of the sign for CyberJocks in Austin, Texas, I created a simple previsualization to be sure the sign would look right. The plaza regulations stipulated a white sign with gold trim (barf) which was not at all in line with what we wanted. Here is what the sign in Buffalo, New York looked like.
And, it looked awesome at night. When I designed it, I specified a strip of exposed red neon tube mounted on the channel behind the letters. The sign manufacturer, Mike Yost of Yost Neon Displays (awesome guy!) said it was one of the coolest designs he’s ever seen or built. That sure made my day!
Naturally, a sign done in white and gold would not have fit our intended tradedress, but the plaza management would not relent. Here is the previs, with the sign after fabrication and installation:
It wasn’t nearly as bad as we had anticipated. Actually looked pretty nice, even though it wasn’t in our proper color scheme. And we couldn’t do the cool neon strip below it. Moral of the story: for maximim brand-building potential, buy your own outparcel, plazas are a pain to work with.