As sort of a addendum to yesterday’s post I thought I’d put up this collection from Now Showing London, an exhibit “exploring the lost art of the film poster”:
“40+ Creatives were given the task of creating their own interpretation of a Cult, Classic or Obscure film poster from the past, whether it be a literal or abstract solution. The result is Now Showing, an Art exhibition paying homage to more than 70 years of film, through the form of Prints, One Off Screen Prints and Sculptures.“
Some great stuff in here; If I had one piece of advice for young designers it would be to take on projects like this every chance you get, paid or not (preferably not). It allows for total creative freedom within a preexisting context that most likely has some sort of personal meaning for you. It really is a big challenge sometimes to have freedom like this. Link
Smashing Magazine has posted a great collection of movie posters featuring some of the classics and some newer selections as well. I find the set a little mainstream, they’re all sort of the obvious choices and all related to major motion pictures. I would love to see someone put together a little more obscure selection including some examples that haven’t been through the major studio marketing ringer. I have to say though, I was blown away by the Planet of the Apes poster, I’d never seen that version before and it’s simply amazing. Link
FivePrime have a nice collection of Rolleiflex / TLR shots posted that really make me want to get back into film, medium format particularly. For the uninitiated, TLR stands for “twin lens reflex” and Rolleiflex has made some of the finest examples of these cameras over the years. For those with deep pockets, you can pick one up on the used market (and roll the dice) or score a new one for the tidy sum of $4500 (but then again, a Zeiss lens is included). Until digital can match the tone and range of shots like these, film will never die. Link
Adobe’s Russell Brown demos Photoshop CS4’s new content-aware scaling feature in this Quicktime Screencast. I’ve had a chance to play with this new scaling feature a lot during the beta phase of CS4 and I have to say it’s pretty impressive. It’s not without it’s quirks though; larger edits produce very noticeable artifacts in the filled in regions (i.e. those that were automatically generated to fill gaps) but with some healing and patch brush action you can clean most of that up pretty easily.
Looks like we’re on for Oct. 14th after all. It’s also pretty clear that most of the rumored upgrades to the Macbook and Macbook Pro lines are going to be a reality (glass trackpads etc.). What I’m really excited about is the possibility of 3GHz quad core and 8GB ram options for the Pro, this might be the first true desktop replacement I’ve seen that’s actually portable. And all this starts at $1799 (there goes that theory).
I am not sure where I first heard this song, but I think it was on some old chillout compilation I had years back. I am always surprised when I play this for someone and they haven’t heard it yet; it seems like a song this good would be pretty well known. Anyways, a mellow classic in every respect.