One thing I kinda like doing is discovering an illustrator or designer after I’ve already purchased or enjoyed some bit of his/her work without knowing it, and then being taken in by the rest of their stuff. The latest candidate for this process of mine is Olly Moss, whose stuff I first saw on Threadless a long time ago. Specifically, that was this Spoilt t-shirt, which fit well with Threadless’s generally clever theme and plays on words.

Turns out this young designer (he’s 21) has also done some great re-imagingins of film posters, which for some reason is a tiny corner of the design world that I can’t help but be enthralled by every time. I have to say, if I was working in the packaging/publicity department of any major studio, I’d be out canvassing these guys and letting them do the hard work for me. Just looking back at Now Showing, any of the major studios have ready-made covers for any future blu-ray special editions, no problem.

Check out his awesome re-imagingings of the great film The Deer Hunter, plus Chaplin’s The Great Dictator. He’s also doing some good work with colour-layering, throwing a bit of typography-based information in there to boot. The “retro band/old song vs. new DJ/new beat = remix” illustration is fantastic, a nice simple encapsulation of where a remix lies, told through a design that stands out.

Then for the people who are somehow visually excited when they see mixing consoles (check), we’ve got his wonderful Mixer Shirt (called AV). Speaking of his shirts, he was also responsible for the Nintendo Family Tree shirt that I pointed out in the last month’s post on pixels. As seen below, his infographic stuff is playful without being overly coy–all fine examples of, say… the Threadless Aesthetic, if there is such a thing, only done right nearly every time.

I’ve seen his designs dozens of times and they’re still funny, which isn’t always the case with Threadless. Partially it’s the illustration, which holds up in a kind of aircraft-emergency-pamphlet way, but the typography and sense of visual timing (check out the rules of shotgun one) are spot-on. This kind of stuff is hard to do well, which is painfully evidenced by the mountain of threadless-imitation sites out there trying to turn bad puns into even crappier t-shirts. Here’s the winning formula: very, very solid joke + design that would make a good shirt even if the joke weren’t funny at all = memorable and funny shirt… maybe. Olly Moss knows how it’s done.

For some strange reason I’m really feeling the alternative-universe design stuff recently, and designers are happy to fufill my every need. Check these out: Antrepo Design gives us some more alternative movie posters, except these ones are ultra-modern, based solely in typography, and list all the brand placement inside some big name films.

There’s nothing wrong with brand placement anyway–a film is a film, and I don’t take these posters as criticism; they’re just a creative way to express a statistic. The fact that a few of the films with the longest list of brand placements are actually quite good (Iron Man, The Bourne Ultimatium), should dispel whatever argument might be brewing in your head at the moment.

I don’t care if people are hopping in nice shiny cars–if you’re going to play a rich character and Lamborghini wants to sponsor you, that’s great–it’s the kind of car I’d expect your character to be driving anyway. No problem! Phones and computers and other things are obvious too: we use these things, so why not movie characters? They just happen to use nicer, cooler versions of them, which work as advertising.

Where brand placement does go crazy, though, is when it temporarily hijacks the film and makes it feel like a commercial. I’m talking about when the actual dialogue of the film suddenly runs off the rails for a second, and characters start talking about the brands themselves. I can think of only one giant example off the top of my head, and it’s from 2006’s Casino Royale. Check out the last 15 seconds of this clip:

“Rolex?” she says.
“Omega,” he replies.
“Beautiful.”

Aye. Subtle. Although I guess one notable film from my childhood was actually far worse, with the entire film being a gigantic advertisement for Nintendo. This scene is pretty cringe-worthy these days, especially considering what a terrible product the Power Glove actually was. I suppose “I love the Power Glove” is a bit more direct than Eva Green’s “beautiful” line.

What a commercial, though: I saw The Wizard twice, putting my anticipation for Super Mario Bros. 3 absolutely through the roof afterwards, and it didn’t abate until I had it in my hands.