I never claimed to be a design wizard. I never said I was good with PhotoShop. What I do have is an order from a high school booster club to produce 15 posters for the graduating senior football players. They will be presented at the football banquet next month.
I typically like to feature a cut-out of the player, however with football, cut-outs of linemen and defensive players (poster number 2) are going to be impossible due to a lack of isolation of those players on action plays. That's why I elected to go with just one larger image on the poster that will be printed as 16"x20".
Here is what I have so far. I am open to ideas and suggestions. Whether I will be able to execute those suggestions is another story altogether.
No expert here either but I will give you some of my opinions of what my eye sees.
I am not sure if I like the transparent bottom or if it should be less see through. I think I personally would like it to be non transparent.
Not sure if this is a major no-no or not but would some type of desautartion of the background work to make the player pop more? I will post a pic of what I mean.
I think you have a good start and you will need better people than me to make it finalized.
No expert here either but I will give you some of my opinions of what my eye sees.
I am not sure if I like the transparent bottom or if it should be less see through. I think I personally would like it to be non transparent.
Not sure if this is a major no-no or not but would some type of desautartion of the background work to make the player pop more? I will post a pic of what I mean.
Ben
Thanks for taking a look Ben. I went back and forth on the opacity of the football layer at the bottom. Easy fix.
I will take a look at desaturating the background of the player. Don't know that I will go all the way to to black and white, but I see what you mean about standing out. Maybe just layer it and lower the saturation of the background layer. Thanks for the suggestion.
Carl Auer wrote:
The school logo seems to be squished and looks artifacty... And I would like to see the bottom design solid, not transparent.
Carl, Good catch. I think when I stretched it to fit in the box, I may have I lost the original aspect ratio. Will resize it -- and if that doesn't work, will re-shoot the football and logo specifically to be used on the poster.
Rick I totally understand the lack of isolation when it comes to shots of the lineman. I would maybe play with cropping tighter and losing some of their extremities to give them as much focus as possible. I'm not wild about the player positions being abbreviated, how about having the two positions (Offensive Guard/Defensive Tackle) stacked instead of being on the same line?
To me, the yellow that you used in the artwork looks flat compared to the yellow on the jerseys and facemask. I would play with that and make your graphic pop more.
The player number needs to have considerably more impact. To me it looks weak and anemic. Football is a aggressive sport, I would make the number smack you in the face. Make it substantial and a major design element.
These are just things off the top off my head and are just points of constructive criticism.
DennisC wrote:
Also, instead of desaturating, what about a subtle vignette? Either would be easy to play around with and see what you like best.
Momma's gonna love 'em!
Thanks for looking Dennis. Good ideas -- and certainly worth trying. Hope you are right about momma. Like they used to tell me down south, "If momma ain't happy, no one's happy."
Next39 wrote:
Rick I totally understand the lack of isolation when it comes to shots of the lineman. I would maybe play with cropping tighter and losing some of their extremities to give them as much focus as possible. I'm not wild about the player positions being abbreviated, how about having the two positions (Offensive Guard/Defensive Tackle) stacked instead of being on the same line?
To me, the yellow that you used in the artwork looks flat compared to the yellow on the jerseys and facemask. I would play with that and make your graphic pop more.
The player number needs to have considerably more impact. To me it looks weak and anemic. Football is a aggressive sport, I would make the number smack you in the face. Make it substantial and a major design element.
These are just things off the top off my head and are just points of constructive criticism. ...Show more →
Scott,
This is exactly what I was looking for. I hate cropping arms and legs, but it may be the only choice with linemen. Will give that a whirl.
I've hated the yellow from the get-go. Either too orange or too pale. Gonna really crank it up and see what it looks like.then.
As for the jersey numbers, I thought about putting it on one side of the footprint logo and then the Class of 2013 Senior Season element on the other side of the footprint.
Really appreciate the constructive criticism. So helpful. Thanks.
First of all, thanks to all who have weighed in so far. After an encouraging phone call from to Billy Hurst and after digesting a couple of really great PM's from Tom Duffy (The Dean of Sports Poster Design) here is a revised version of the Senior Football Poster.
Again, thoughts, comments, crits, and nit-picks are all welcome and encouraged.
Rick: I'm all for keeping it simple and I think the key to a good poster is a good photo. The photo you have for Bello is perfect, but I wouldn't cut into the photo for the sake of the other stuff. Several years back, I created posters for all of the seniors on the high school football team. I created a template and dropped each photo into that template. Here are three examples. Absolutely minimal photoshop skills (duh!), and nothing earth shaking, but I included the elements I wanted to have in each poster and got the job done. The emphasis was the photos, not my deficient PS skills.
Russ Isabella wrote:
Rick: I'm all for keeping it simple and I think the key to a good poster is a good photo. The photo you have for Bello is perfect, but I wouldn't cut into the photo for the sake of the other stuff. Several years back, I created posters for all of the seniors on the high school football team. I created a template and dropped each photo into that template. Here are three examples. Absolutely minimal photoshop skills (duh!), and nothing earth shaking, but I included the elements I wanted to have in each poster and got the job done. The emphasis was the photos, not my deficient PS skills.
Rick liking the second one alot...does the black lettering have to be on the bottom? is it part of the ball? also would some sort of gradient work so the cut of leg to the bottom portion is not so abrupt? I personally can't do gradients but they always look good when paul and tom do them.
@sandman -- good call on the black lettering on the football. That is actually the school name and logo. Think I will grab another ball and re-shoot it without the text for a good clean version. And I think I am going to receipt the photos so that I can avoid the issue of chopped legs altogether. Gradients Help, but a good full length picture will eliminate that problem.
Thanks for your thoughts and have a Happy Thanksgiving.
