Graphic Design Basics

Assignment

I chose to do closing title credits for 2012's DREDD. Plot: In a violent, futuristic city where the police have the authority to act as judge, jury and executioner, a cop teams with a trainee to take down a gang that deals the reality-altering drug, SLO-MO. The movie takes place almost entirely in one large building in which Dredd and his rookie partner are locked in and have to fight their way through the gangs controlled by the crime leader, Ma-ma. Since the idea of "judge, jury and executioner" is based on such a dystopian, totalitarian concept, I wanted the titles to be reflective of those themes while also contrasting it to the actual chaos that rules the city. The main typeface for the names is big, blocky, clean, ruthless, and ass-kicking—like the judges themselves. The images are bold, contrasty, and have shapes cutout of them, evoking power and propaganda. But the secondary typeface (for the job titles) is thin, poorly stenciled, imperfect, and the texture of the images themselves are grungy, messy and sketchy, implying disorder within the system. I choose red, black, and white as my main colors to imply, once again, propaganda and also totalitarianism, action, violence, and blood, reinforcing the film’s themes. My concept for the titles is to go through the top of the building and as we descend into it, we penetrate several layers of images representing different characters and scenarios. This reinforces movie’s theme of the way our protagonists have to fight their way through each floor (or “layer”) of the building, and also creates a sort of “infinite zoom” effect, meant to imply a drug-induced journey similar to the one characters in the film experience. Once the sequence is ending, we come out through the other side (literally and metaphorically) and we zoom out into an aerial view of the city, where we see the buildings and city blocks beginning to form the title of the film. This reinforces the theme of overpopulation and complete chaos, implying once again that each building is its own complete world, each with its own problems and chaos. I wasn’t exactly sure what was due for the homework, so I’m uploading my pencil thumbnails, mind map, and test frames I did for frames 4 & 5. Comments and critique welcome and encouraged!