As with a lot of people, I was pretty pumped to see the new Tron Legacy trailer from the San Diego Comic Con hit the web last week, revealing more of the story, characters and super slick neon design of costumes and vehicles. I watched it a bunch just to eat up the overall design.

A year ago when the initial footage for Tron Legacy was released I set about creating my own poster for the film, being a huge fan of the direction and style. My poster flew all over the web, and was even mistaken by Netflix as being the official release which gave me a pretty good laugh. But, the design and palette of the film underwent a bit of a change since that initial footage was released, resulting in my poster being a touch obsolete. Still being pumped for the movie, I cracked open my old Photoshop file and began revising my original design to reflect the new direction.

This was a really fun exercise, where I had to revise all of the important elements including the disc design, neon color treatments and lighting effects. I wanted the new version to reflect some of the style updates including the grey-blue architecture design and brilliant amber lighting seen on the character’s wardrobe and vehicles. Here are a few of my disc vectors, including the updated version:

The designs aren’t 100% accurate to the concept design of the film or anything, I just wanted to make this poster interesting and fun. At the time, I presumed the official poster once released would showcase the main actor or something, so I wanted to do the opposite and focus on the film content and style. I treated the revision as if Disney needed the update based on what has been happening during production. As much as I would like to design something for Tron Legacy, this poster design is not official by any means. Just a personal project for the fun of it.

I will be sending this poster to the print shop super soon and will figure out some methods of getting this into peoples’ hands, along with updating all of the Tron Legacy wallpapers I had previously released. Stay tuned!

The Tuts+ 2010 commemorative poster is now available for purchase in the Signalnoise Store. This poster is 18″ x 24″, printed in full color on semi-gloss poster stock and ready to ship. You will also get a couple of free Signalnoise stickers with any order to vandalize stop signs in your neighborhood. Fun stuff.

Swing on over to the Signalnoise Store to check out the selection of posters.

I’ve been using a few lovely ladies in my poster designs over the past year or so, and I thought it might be cool to talk a bit about the photographic elements I use in my works.

Right off the bat, no I don’t do my own photography. It has been suggested in a few comments that I should be taking my own photographs to use, but in all honesty it’s too expensive. To get the quality and size that I need for an 18″ x 24″ poster I would require a camera that is a bit out of my budget. Group that with lighting, studio set-up and all that, it’s a big can of worms and I’d rather focus my effort on Photoshop. Gotta pick your battles, y’know?

That being said, shown above are some splits of my finished posters and the photos I used to make them. The majority of the stock I used has come from Thinkstock.com, where I am a proud member of their ThinkCorps team. I’m yet to stump their search engine with some of the silly things I search for, so hats off to them for building such a nice library of photos. You guys rule!

An interesting thing happened while I was creating the 2010 Tuts+ poster regarding stock imagery. I had already created the colorful curved elements and wanted a sci-fi image to place in the center. After searching around for a suitable “science fiction” photograph, an image of a girl with painted black skin appeared in the “you might also like” section. I was so taken by this strange image it actually changed to concept of my poster and took it in a direction I didn’t intend. So in a way, the search engine actually helped me complete the poster.

Sometimes I’ll find an image before designing the layout of a given poster, and other times I leave it for later. Either way, the stock imagery found (and suggested) can really influence what direction I go.

I was asked recently to participate in the The Haiti Poster Project, conceived by Moxie Sozo (organizer of the 2005 Hurricane Poster Project) and Josh Higgins (organizer of the 2007 So-Cal Fire Poster Project). The initiaive is put best straight from the source:

“The Haiti Poster Project seeks limited edition sets of posters from artists, designers and design firms from around the world. The donated posters will be sold online to raise money for Doctors Without Borders. As designers, we have the collective ability to do what we love, and to create a difference. The Haiti Poster Project has been conceived as a collective effort by the design community to unite and effect change through our work. In order for this project to be successful, we are counting on designer participation. Our goal is to raise at least $1,000,000 for Doctors Without Borders. PLEASE HELP SPREAD THE WORD.”

I did my own fundraiser in support of Haiti earthquake relief back in January, but it is a pleasure to be involved on this level with a much larger group. The above poster is the one I created for the event and will be available to purchase in a limited run through The Haiti Poster Project. It is simply titled Help. More to come soon as I get the posters printed and shipped.

I kept things relatively quiet on the blog for the past week in order to keep attention on the Haiti relief effort. I want to send out a huge thanks to all those who ordered posters over the past week to help raise money to be donated to the Canadian Red Cross. In total, $1,187.02 has been raised, which surpassed all of my expectations.

I really appreciate all of those who brought attention to this effort, notably Applied Arts magazine for bringing people together for such a good cause. Thanks so much, everyone.