Need some serious crits on poster designs

[mercphoto]

I'm hoping to hit the track again in September, if I continue healing like this and build up some lost muscle strength. And I'm trying to use old photos to come up with interesting poster/collage designs to sell. And since I'm not shooting right now I have time to play with Photoshop. :)

All C&C welcome and appreciated!

I shoot track days. People bring their cars out to lap and have fun and learn to be a better driver. I sell photos speculatively to these drivers of them on the track. I used to track cars myself, and buying photos of yourself on the track is a vanity thing. A well done poster just helps with the vanity. :)

1.


2. Perhaps my favorite to date, though my latest spin puts the top photo in black and white, and its much stronger:

[img]

3.


4. Trying for a movie poster look here:


5. Philosophical


6. A better movie poster idea, but I need serious work on fonts. Plus most of my shots are landscape and don't crop well to portrait:

[groovyone]

1) I like the flag/tach (is that the correct tach?) but the font seems corny to me. Without the wording I like it a lot.

2) Hard to say, I think I'd like it better if the car shots were not overlapping so much but it is hard to say. Nice photos though. Text is more subtle here.

3) I like this one. My only nit picks would be make the logo and text smaller so they doesn't cover the car, maybe a different photo for spot #2 where the car isn't cut off, and maaaaybe move the #4 photo all the way to the right so the photo with all the grass is closer to the grass on the large shot.

4) Love the layout, just not feeling the processing. Not saying it is bad, just not something that works for me. Text is so-so. It seems kinda wordart to me.

5) Love it, not sure I'd use a Miata in that layout, but that is more personal auto-bias. haha

6) I love the idea and layout, I might tone back the processing and work on the font some.

I hope that helps! Those are all just my personal opinion as a car guy who stinks at Photoshop. Looks like some cool ideas though, and the photos are good!

[mercphoto]

Thanks! That is one problem with #1, its not the correct tach, and probably won't work as a generic template because of that. #4 is heavliy posterized, and probably a bit too much. #5 I have examples with a few different cars. Its pretty much a template now and I can drop in just about any shot. Good comments on #6, thanks. Sometimes I can make a shot work for that layout (portrait mode) and sometimes I need to combine two landscape shots and stack them.

[mercphoto]

Two others.

7. I had some inspiration for this one but I cannot remember where I saw the original concept. It would also work well with the car's badge rather than the track shield. I don't like the font for "Hit The Road" but the phrase itself is fitting as its the victory cry for the track, Harris Hill Road.


8. This one I got the idea from the movie poster for "Truth In 24", a documentary of the Audio Le Mans efforts. Its a great movie, and free on iTunes, by the way!

[dmarty78]

Bill, you have the right idea, I think the processing is a tad over-done in a few of them. I noticed a few of them you mention the movie poster look. To get the movie poster look you need to have more impact with the text. You need to get the attention of the viewer with that text. Look at your red line fever poster. Redline suggest a tach pegged in the red. Use a clipping mask to create text with a redlined tach in the text.

Great ideas, but I feel they need a little more work.

[mercphoto]

Thanks everyone! I'll work more on fonts and tone back on the post-processing. :)

[mercphoto]

Thanks for the great feedback. I did a bit of editing. Re-worked text on this one. It is still heavily processed in a pop-art style mostly because for the portrait crop I cropped heavily, and the pop-art effect does a great job of hiding the lack of resolution:




Another two:

[Flores]

Maybe magazine cover would be 'more interesting' than the movie poster? esp in an 8x10 8.5x11 size?

I did a poster up for a customer after the last driver's edge event here at MSR... he ended up ordering it as a 20x30 canvas wrap :)

[texkam]

Not a fan of the typography.

[mercphoto]

Originally Posted by Flores

Maybe magazine cover would be 'more interesting' than the movie poster? esp in an 8x10 8.5x11 size?

I did a poster up for a customer after the last driver's edge event here at MSR... he ended up ordering it as a 20x30 canvas wrap :)

Possibly!