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EWB Monthly Graphic Contest: April

EddieG

By EddieG
in Mods/Scenarios and Graphics

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EddieG

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EWB'S MONTHLY GRAPHIC CONTEST

RESULTS FROM THE MONTH OF APRIL

First of all, I'd like to thank all the participants for entering and hope to see you all in May's contest.

Second of all, the same goes for the judges AD, docpepper and The Mask Of Norro

I will put up the graphics and the scores by all the judges, then the feedback I got from The Mask Of Norro and AD

So anyway here we go.

THE SCORES

Chief87

EddieG 6.5

The Mask Of Norro 6

AD 7

docpepper 9

Total Score 28.5

Norro's review

If we're going to talk realism, this could actually work. It's simplistic, it draws the viewer's attention... and I could imagine stopping to look at it if it were blown up big and on a wall to advertise the event. Now, that being said... a few issues.

For starters, the text is *very* all over the place... and while that may be part of the point, there's a certain style to that kind-of text placement, and this one breaks format in certain areas. The date at the bottom faintly crosses into the bottom of the poster, but not so much that the white slashes take over completely, leaving a faint black strip there. This is the same for some of the other parts to the poster where the text crosses against the border, it just looks unbalanced and tacky. Once again, there's a certain style to doing things like that, and this one just falls short.

All in all? The idea is good. It's simple, it's to the point, and it has all the information a person could want for it (sans "get your tickets at ______"). However, in its execution, it falls just a bit too short.

AD's review

It's busy but I like the style of the text dominating and everything is positioned fairly well. The fade on the celebrities' pictures (particularly Carrey and Ferrell) is a bit too sharp. I would perhaps give the title of the event more spacing around it or make it stand out a little bit against the rest but it works as it is as well.

Footjob Fever

Eddie G 6

The Mask Of Norro 3

AD 6

docpepper 5

Total Score 20

Norro's review

This one's tough to call... it's a decent graphic, but what you're designing here isn't so much a graphic as it is an actual poster. When I look at this, I don't see a poster... I see what looks like an internet advertisement that needs to be made a bit skinnier and shoved to the side of a blogger website, and I mean no offense by that. It's a decent graphic by all means, but its realism is sorely lacking.

Yet even being a decent graphic, it still has its problems. Let's start with the typography... the "Mission Tibet" logo is completely overshadowed by almost everything else on the page, and the outer glow used on the text just looks... tacky. The white stroke used on the text at the top with the names of the people just makes the text look lazily thrown on and gives a bit of a sloppy look to a piece that looks as though it's attempting to be crisp. The font's a problem too, by the by, just doesn't look appropriate at all on this poster... and the dark green really doesn't fit well. Then, the text at the bottom right is mis-matched in its placement there, and... we run into a problem here.

Look at the graphic. How many different fonts did you use on this? As a rule of thumb, you generally want to limit your font selection to a maximum of three fonts, with only one of them being drastically different from the rest. What you have here appears to be four different fonts, each one very different from the last. It... really doesn't work at all, and what's worse is that the banner cutting through the lower middle of the poster is incredibly blurry, text and all. The drop shadow on it is, unfortunately, poorly done as well.

As for the cuts... well, again, look at them. Different sizes, angles... it honesly does look like you've just cut them out from different pictures that have them zoomed out at different levels, and that just doesn't work well for any graphic. You want to try and have a uniform size for the people on your poster, because otherwise you'll have one person looking like a midget while another one looks like a giant, and that's not the impression I think you're wanting there. Furthermore, you've used pictures with drastically different lighting, and I think that's further throwing off the lighting of the graphic on a whole. Finally, with the cuts, you have some that have outer glows and some that have overly harsh drop shadows, and it just... it doesn't look good, it clashes them even further.

I hate to be so harsh, but I tried to explain things as best as I could so you might learn something from it for next time and improve from it. Sorry, Matt, but this just didn't turn out very well at all.

AD's review

I like the positioning of everything but the glows around the main cuts are inconsistent, some are white, some are black and some don't seem to have one. The text isn't great and the whole thing is a bit too blurry. Not a bad effort, though.

K

Eddie G 9

The Mask Of Norro 8

AD 8

docpepper 8

Total Score 33

Norro's review

The perennial fan-favorite in this ting... I have to say, graphically, this thing is near-flawless. The logo is perfect, typography is balanced and the variation on your fonts aren't too drastic that it causes a visual conflict. The cuts are well done, they aren't disproportionate from each other... you did really well with balancing things out here, but I do have a few problems to note, actually.

First, I have to give you credit for trying to draw in the shadow yourself like that, but the shadow is very disproportionate to the way the guys on the picture are lighted. Look at the man in the front, he's pretty much engulfed in light compaired to the rest in the photo, with the man directly to his right strangely shadowed and with a lowered contrast than himself. This can be a problem for a lot of designers, we find the perfect cuts but they just don't have the same lighting, and it's difficult to edit... but unfortunately, it happens, and that's what's happened here. The man on the far right, for example, practically looks like a CGI character compaired to the way the rest have been displayed. His lighting is much less harsh, a bit toned down, and more bluish in tint... whereas the guys on the left have a more reddish tint in their lighting. Color-correcting, levels, etc... these are what you should focus on when trying to get them to fit together, so you can get the coloring just right on them.

As far as the poster... normally, I'd say it doesn't look realistic as a poster. However, this is LOST, and that has a particular style all its own, which this poster adheres to. Style-wise, it definitely works, and it works well. It captures the feel of the show while also capturing the feel of a concert poster, meshing them together well. The main problem is, as I've explained, the lighting.

All in all, this piece is good. It's not the best I've seen from Keith, but it's good, and thus it gets a good score. Next time though, I'd love to see how you do with color-correcting and lighting adjustments on cuts, Keith... it could really make your graphic come together a whole lot more.

AD's review

Extremely well mashed together but I think the drop shadows on the cuts and the text kills it a bit. I'd also put the 'Missing People' logo in the centre, it looks odd having everything else centred. Not a whole lot wrong with it at all.

Momo

Eddie G 4

The Mask Of Norro 3

AD 6.5

docpepper 3

Total Score 16.5

Norro's review

Uuuuuuugh, black font with white stroke, that's a pet peeve of mine. It's generally shunned against because unless the stroke is particularly thick, it often makes the text more difficult to read and actually corrupts the intended appearance of the font. Moreover, it appears that you've made the white stroke blend in with random bits of Mars, which just... I mean, I realize you probably thought the black font looked better and used the white stroke to make it legible, but there are other ways to go about doing that. Play around with lighting behind the font or, if all else fails, go for more of a stylized white blur behind the text rather than an abrupt, 1pxl stroke... it just looks tacky.

Furthermore, the font choice is questionable for a poster. It's not attention-grabbing, and to be honest there's so much going on in the upper right-hand corner that my eye is more drawn towards there than anywhere else on the poster. The square images of the band members don't work well with the poster either, they're limiting and because the band isn't blending or meshing with the rest of the poster, it feels more like they're just slapped in there, rather than the idea that they belong there in the first place. Personally, I'd suggest next time trying to work in a cut of the band onto the poster, rather than going for blocked-off headshots.

Finally, this piece just doesn't look realistic. The background itself could work, but the way you've done it makes this look more like a potential movie poster than a concert poster, and the incredible amount of empty space in the left and middle of the poster makes the whole piece just difficult to look at. I'd suggest working on your balance of typography on the piece, and finding a way to better integrate the band into the piece.

AD's review

I like the premise but there's too much black in the background, perhaps a few stars in between the planets would have livened it up a bit. Text is basic but decent though the positioning of it could be better, particularly the names of the celebrities. I think the bottom text needs to be a lighter colour and I think it needs to stand out more because of it being information about the event.

Mr. iMPACT!

Eddie G 5

The Mask Of Norro 2

AD 5

docpepper 5.5

Total Score 17.5

Norro's review

This is incredibly simple, and that's not a bad thing by any means, but the way you've done it makes it come across more as a lazy simple rather than a stylized simple.

The centered text with a lack of any style or flare to it, the disproportionate headshots of the various celebrities involved with the event-- one of which (Harvey) being so ridiculously brighter than the rest that it makes him look like he's radiating in his own glow-- and the fact that there's no blending in the bottom of the cuts, leaving them to cut-off abruptly at the bottom, as well as poor spacing between the type on the page, makes the whole thing come across as hastily put together in a sloppy attempt to make it in before the deadline.

Please don't take offense to this, mate, but it honest-to-God looks like you didn't put all that much effort into this. I'm not expecting brilliance by any means, but what I do expect in more simple pieces is an appealing style to them. This doesn't have that by any stretch, and unfortunately doesn't appear to have even tried to create an appealing style in the first place.

AD's review

I like the idea but too much black, it's too bland overall with the text being plain white as well. Positioning and sizing of the celebs could be better too, Keitel's head looks larger than the others' and Statham looks like he's just been forgotten about on the left side while the others are bunched together on the right.

nufan

Eddie G 7

The Mask Of Norro 6

AD 6.5

docpepper 7

Total Score 26.5

Norro's review

This one's not as bad as it could have been, by any means. The cuts at the bottom aren't good by any means though, unfortunately, as Alec Baldwin looks frightfully huge and midget-like all at the same time when put next to the rest of the celebrities at the bottom in the particular cut you've used, and the fact that Portman's doing this creepy "stare into your soul over Ricky Gervais' shoulder" thing in the background doesn't help much either. Furthermore, the lighting is off for a few, and while some of them have a crisp, clear appearance to them... there are some of your cuts that are also quite blurred and appear to be suffering from image corruption (if you're unfamiliar with the term, simply copy and paste an image into Microsoft Paint and then save it as a JPEG over and over and over again for awhile, and you'll see what I mean).

The logo itself isn't that great of a color choice, either... the baby blue really stands out as a poor choice on this poster, and I feel like a better color choice would have been yellow, to match the yellow of the designs on their shirts at the bottom. The background is good and the way you've blended Rise Against in at the top is well done too, but now I also have to get into a point on text: the text at the top? Yeah, almost no-one will be able to notice it. You've got the viewer's eyes drawing directly onto the logo in the middle, and so no-one will really notice the small text at the top of the poster. Even if we count the idea of this being blown up big, the fact remains that that's an awful lot of information packed into a smaller space than needed.

My suggestion? Find a way to move PETA2's logo and Rise Against's logo to the top of the page, perhaps making them smaller in the process, and then move that text at the top to the bottom and make it larger. Work on spacing and typography, try to make it fit in at the bottom while looking styled to the design of the poster. The font choice desperately needs altering, it just doesn't fit in with the pseudo-grungy feel of the piece. All in all, this has potential, but as it is right now it's fallen terribly short.

AD's review

The text at the top looks like it was done last minute and you just couldn't be bothered to be honest. The main text has an odd few bits around the background and while I think I know what you were trying to go for with the white highlight over the top, it doesn't suit the theme of the poster and keeping it straight while slanting the text is a bad idea. Cuts are okay, photo manips are good.

TheBusinessMan

Eddie G 8

The Mask Of Norro 5

AD 7.5

docpepper 6

Total Score 26.5

Norro's review

We're back to the same problem a few others before you have had, unfortunately... the lighting on your cut choices. Look at Johnny Depp, look at how incredibly crisp and contrasted he is in comparison to the rest of the people on the poster. You know what's bad about this the most? My eye is drawn more to the stark contrast of Depp than it is to Keira Knightley, who's the only person in color and the person you've tried to put to the center of the viewer's attention. Depp is so bright compaired to the rest that he just stands out completely, and that's by no means a good thing considering what you were going for with the set-up.

Furthermore, look at the quality of the images. I was talking about this before: when picking out your pictures, be sure to make sure that they're roughly the same quality, or you'll have results where certain pictures are suffering from image corruption and others aren't. Depp and Knightley have a decent quality to them (with Depp having the sharper image of the two), but then Daniel Craig appears to be blurry, Colin Farrell looks grainy, and Nicholas Cage looks like a combination of the two.

As for the font... I see what you were going for here, but the style of it just hasn't been pulled off particularly well. The faded black at the top is crossing over the tops of the heads of some of your celebs there, and that just looks tacky. Furthermore, you've constrained the space that the text has so much thanks to the height of the cuts, that the text looks painfully trapped there, as if it wasn't supposed to be there but there was no-where else for it to go. You don't want to shrink it, either, the size is just fine... what you need to do is center that text a little more, and then move the celebrities down a little, to make more room for the text to fit comfortably in the piece.

The typography at the bottom isn't all that great either. The black stroke on the white text, particularly with this font, just looks tacky... would be much better to omitt that and just rely on the drop shadow to make things legible. Play around with the drop shadow, make it subtle yet still apparent enough to make the text pop, and that should look fine. Beyond that, you need to shrink the type a little, because having it touch the edges and bottom of the poster just makes it look all the more tacky and thrown together.

It fits the theme you were going for, but overall the execution of your idea hasn't lived up to its potential. Work on your cut choices, positioning, and typography... typography is oftentimes what makes or breaks a good poster design.

AD's review

Good idea, fairly good execution as well. I would change a few things, though. For one I would move the text at the bottom away from the edge of the poster a bit and make the Guerilla Warfare text stand out. Cuts are decent but would be better positioned behind the text. Solid effort.

AND YOUR WINNER FOR THE FIRST EVER EWB MONTHLY GRAPHIC CONTEST BY EDDIE G

KEITH

K.png

Once again, thank you everybody. And see you next month :P

And another special thanks to Norro for pinning the threads and detailed feedback :)

Edited by EddieG
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Matt Hall Of Famer

Matt

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Posted (edited)

The fact I didn't come last is an achievement for me, I knew that the piece was pretty horrid after I'd done it and I kept meaning to redo it but really couldn't be bothered.

Edit: I think it may have also been my first piece since getting photoshop back but that's not really an excuse.

Edited by Footjob Fever
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Legend_Killer33 Lower Midcarder

Legend_Killer33

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Why only post Norro's feedback? I don't know about Dochappy or yourself but I definitely gave you detailed feedback.

Because I think he is insinuating your opinions aren't as worthwhile to put up because you aren't as revered as Norro on the Graphics board which is something I beg to differ

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EddieG Hall Of Famer

EddieG

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Why only post Norro's feedback? I don't know about Dochappy or yourself but I definitely gave you detailed feedback.

Yes, yes you did. I did edit in yours.

The reason I only put up Norro's at first, is because he went pretty in-depth and said pretty much all that had to be said.

Admittedly, your feedback did add things Norro didn't mention.

I do apologize

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The Mask of Norro Intercontinental Champion

The Mask of Norro

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Why only post Norro's feedback? I don't know about Dochappy or yourself but I definitely gave you detailed feedback.

Because I think he is insinuating your opinions aren't as worthwhile to put up because you aren't as revered as Norro on the Graphics board which is something I beg to differ

Or, you know, it might have just slipped his mind.

Just a thought.

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