What are the most obvious indications for a graphic designer who isn’t caring about his or her work? Blurry and fuzzy looking key art? One of the most blatant font choices out there? Or, as in the case of Annihilation, a little bit of both?
Alex Garland’s latest work hasn’t had an easy start to put it mildly. After seeing the final cut, the executive producer demanded significant changes to be made, which Garland naturally refused. As a result the film got dumped to Netflix for international markets. And on top of that it received a shockingly lacklustre marketing campaign.
It’s a real shame to see a poster and soundtrack design as lousy as this. Especially for a film from one of the most meticulous and artistic young directors out there, who gained widespread critical success with his last work Ex_Machina.
Short on official key art I decided to go back to the media that arguably is the better option to experience this weird, feverish story: Jeff VanderMeer’s novel. His Southern Reach trilogy has been published numerous times in various different editions and I decided to carry over some of those designs to my custom covers, thus giving the score album a slighty different feel and allowing you to choose between multiple designs.
HQCovers 
Woefully generic springs to mind, but I guess the films soundtrack is just being dumped out there in just the same way as the film itself is. The BR2049 soundtrack had similarly imaginative artwork. I suppose as everything becomes more download/streaming-focused there will be less and less attention put towards the craft of album artwork, which is terribly sad. It was bad enough losing big vinyl album covers when CD brought about smaller artwork/packaging, but now everything’s becoming an itunes icon.
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Oh I wouldn’t say that. There’s plenty of really, really good artwork around. Especially now that the vinyl lp is coming back more and more. It may the gap between generic and awesome that grows bigger and bigger.
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Man, I feel so sorry for this film. It certainly deserves a lot better than coming out only a week after ‘Black Panther’ comes out.
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Would you say that Annihilation and Black Panther target the same audience? I wouldn’t and I don’t think that there’s less box office due to the release date. Up until now I’d much rather blame the marketing campaign (or the lack thereof).
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Well… for one, they both seem to be sci-fi films to certain degrees at the very least… :P
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Oh, and I have 2 requests. Can you make a soundtrack cover for ‚Mute‘ based on this poster (with Netflix logo included):
https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/static.screenweek.it/movie/23571/poster/ita/share.jpg?1517326776
…as well as ‚Ghost in the Shell‘ (2017) soundtrack cover based on this:
http://adolescentesymas.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Ghost_in_the_shell-7152017.jpeg
…with both Clint Mansell and Lorne Balfe names included?
I know they’re not released yet, but still…
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MUTE is on the way.
But I won’t tackle GitS, considering how disappointing both the score and the film were. And to cancel out Clint Mansell’s score in its entirety is a crying shame. Maybe I’ll change my mind once Mansell gets his dues, but not for now.
Maybe this will be helpful to you:
https://blackinkcovers.wixsite.com/custom-covers/ghost-in-the-shell
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1. So I can either expect ‘Mute’ or ‘Pacific Rim’ for the next one? :D
2. Oh, well. At least those are better than nothing. :P
3. Sorry for leaving out this request, but… remember what you did with ‘Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2’ by keeping the soundtrack design as same but changing the title card to that light blue one, which I really liked?
Yeah… is it possible for you to do one for ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’ as well? This is a cover:
…and here’s the title card that I’m referring to:
P.S. You don’t have to do that for ‘Pacific Rim: Uprising’ though since that cool-looking title design from the trailer was NEVER used in any of the posters. :(
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Also, I really liked that ‘TRON: Legacy’ soundtrack design you’ve created. Can you do one for ‘TRON’ based on this poster?:
Sorry that I’m making so many requests at once. I thought you might not be able to read this particular reply if I post it on ‘TRON: Legacy’ page.
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I’m getting notified so don’t worry. And I have plans to redo the TRON Legacy set, maybe that’ll be a good time to work on the first one as well.
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Oh, you’re re-doing it? :)
In that case, can you add “Disney” writing on top of the title whenever you make one? It kind of feels awkward without it.
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[…] for Mansell. Unfortunately, the film wasn’t very successful (just like Alex Garland’s Annihilation it was “dumped” into Netflix’s ever-growing catalogue), which makes an official […]
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