Are you the puppet or puppeteer?
a poster for the movie manipulation
awards
First Place in Graphic Design at the 2018 Cerritos College Student Art Exhibition
Overview
Manipulation is a psychological horror movie about a young woman who lives a controlled life by means of her father and romantic relationships that follow. The poster is a depiction of this story where the rope is breaking to signify her ultimate escape.
challenges
The challenging aspect of this poster was the photomanipulation of the hand and ropes.
solution
The poster was designed to have a puppeteer imagery to imply the manipulation that the woman faces; using an older person’s hand as representation of her father. The typography of the title has a vertical motion blur to tie into the vertical ropes and movement from the puppeteer.
process
Firstly, research on movie posters in general as well as horror movie posters was performed to get an idea of general guidelines. In order to keep the focus on the hand and ropes, the background was choses to be a dark gradient. I took photos of my own father’s hand and edited the colors to be desaturated to create an eerie atmosphere. Photos of torn rope were then adjusted and manipulated (ha!) to the photo of the hand. All typography was set in white to keep a desaturated visual over the entire poster as well as to provide enough contrast for readability at a distance.
Tools
Photoshop
Lightroom
