Robert Donald - Graphic Designer

MOONFALL MOVIE POSTER CAMPAIGN

Click here to see the final release poster at larger scale (1.3MB)

As final major project at Coventry University, this was an important project. The brief was to create a series of teaser posters for a (fictional) movie, followed by the theatrical release poster. The film in question is based on Moonfall, adapted from the novel by Jack McDevitt (This is a fictional disaster movie, based on a comet hitting the moon, and then the moon impacting with the earth).

The poster art was intentionally stylised. The text of the book itself, although set in the near future, seemed to have an almost eighties sensibility, so the aim was to give the visuals a 'wire frame' appearance reminiscent of graphics of the time, but to try and update them in an interesting way. The choice of red was an attempt to move it away from the traditional blues and greens of wire frame graphics, and give the art a suitably apocalyptic mood. The majority of the elements were created in 3D Studio Max, with some modifications later on in Photoshop.

The larger image above is the final release poster, measured at US 27x41 inches, along with some of the rough initial concepts. Below are the four teaser posters at 48 sheet proportions. (They were also designed in 6 sheet proportions).

PANORAMA - REVISED TITLE SEQUENCE

Click HERE for Panorama Animation - 3.9MB (Quicktime Required).

Revising the Panorama title sequence was an interesting challenge; how to create a new and interesting look whilst still keeping the trademark imagery that the public associates with Panorama.

In the end, the design idea was of streams of the word 'Panorama' leading up to the grid ball from the Panorama logo. Then the camera pans round and through the 'o' of Panorama. The name of the particular program would then be visible in one of the grids of the ball (as an example in this case, the famous Princess Diana interview).

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TISCALI - THE FUTURE OF STREAMING WEB MEDIA

Click HERE for Tiscali Animation - 19.3MB (Quicktime Required).

The brief called for a short 20-30 second animation advertising Tiscali streaming web media on the Internet. The idea was quite abstract, with the Internet represented as a moving tunnel of information with relevant facts moving through it.

This was represented by the words 'information', 'communication' and 'interaction'. Eventually the camera would reach the 'light at the end of the tunnel', and the Tiscali logo would come up, with the tagline 'Reaching for a new (virtual) world'.

BLACK SWAN TERRACE - 3D VIRTUAL RESTORATION

Click HERE for Black Swan Terrace Animation - 7.2MB (Quicktime Required - see bottom menu).

The Black Swan Terrace is a medieval building at the eastern end of Coventry which has been adapted and renovated over the years and then ran into disrepair. By 2001 it had become extremely run-down, and an initiative had been put in place to restore the building to its former glory for use as a tourist office for the few medieval buildings that remain in that part of the city.

This three dimensional simulation was intended for the homepage on the Black Swan Terrace Restoration website. As very little information exists about how this medieval building originally looked, research was conducted into period architecture. Common elements were then incorporated into the building in its present day state.

The animation is sixteen seconds long, and was constructed with identical start and end positions for the camera so that the animation could be looped.

Click on image for a larger version (640 x 480 pixels)

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COVENTRY CATHEDRAL- INK WASH EFFECT

The idea for this illustration came on the day the accompanying photograph was taken, as it was snowing and very overcast. When the photograph came out, the quality of light exaggerated the looming tower.

This was the inspiration for representing the Cathedral in a very moody form, almost as a haunted castle, which was perfectly complemented by the style of the architecture (to clarify, this is the old Cathedral that was bombed during the war, not the new one built alongside).

Some of the angles were purposefully skewed in order to keep the piece unbalanced, and give a sense of vertigo to the height of the spire. The image was rendered in inks with washes.

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ANTI/PRO TOY GUN AWARENESS CAMPAIGN

These billboard posters were designed to provoke interest over the subject of banning toy guns because of the possible danger of educating children that violence and the use of guns is acceptable (particularly important after incidents such as the Columbine Massacre). They were designed as a way for toy stores to get the public's opinion.

The first two of the designs were intended to be anti toy guns, while the other two were pro toy guns. The design idea of a toy catalogue unified the designs and gave the campaign a strong identity and theme.

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GM FOOD AWARENESS CAMPAIGN

These posters were designed not to answer any of the big questions about Genetically Modified foods. If anything, they were intended for people to notice that what they were being told was complete rubbish, scaremongering, or just overly exaggerated. This would hopefully provoke interest in the subject.

All four posters were designed around the same basic structure, with the colour scheme different for each in the series.

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COVENTRY UNIVERSITY - GRAPHIC DESIGN VIRTUAL GALLERY

The brief for this project was to design a Virtual Gallery for Coventry University's Graphic Design course.

The structure for the site was based around Coventry's ring road, using signposts as the navigation system, as well as a simple menu bar down the left hand side of the page. Shown here are four pages, one from each level of the website structure.

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UNITED NATIONS CHARTER BILLBOARD

This project called for the use of part of the United Nations charter to raise attention to the basic aims of the UN. Through this the focus was placed on children in areas of war or famine who the United Nations were working to help. Each child is intended to represent a different continent, although due to issues of layout it was decided that not every continent needed representation (as this particular idea was not directly referred to on the poster).

These four children were chosen off the United Nations website because they represented diversity of race, sex, age and religion. The colour was removed from these images in order to suggest the similarity of their positions. The blue is of course the UN logo's colour.

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