Design analysis of the poster Coda
How does visual language convey the keynote of the film?
I chose the poster of a documentary film Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda because I find the layout is concise and tranquility is the feeling that the poster conveys to audience. The film is about a Japanese pianist and composer captures the sound of things and offer an insight of the tension at the heart of his art.
Poster and Focus
The purpose of this poster is to introduce a documentary film and convey the information and the keynote of the film. The design is effective and achieve the purpose by capitalizing and enlarging the letters as well as shooting someone’s back stands in front of the forest. The information is clear and the background is strikingly.
Hierarchy of Information
- Name of the film and background image of the poster
- Name of the Japanese pianist and composer
- Director of the film
- The award marks
- The quote of the film
- The remaining small text
Color
The color of font is pretty consistent with the whole theme. It is simply just green and white, plus some black color embedded in the image. Instead of using striking color to attract people’s attention, the designer applied color scheme similars to the background image to remain the consistency of the whole design.
Green represents nature, balance and harmony. It is soft yet powerful to heal the soul, and it is gentle yet imperishable to comfort the heart. This lime green is just right enough to reflect the philosophy of Skamato’s music — the power to heal the pain, as well as to present two principles of the film — his passion to integrate the sound of nature into his music and the persistence to create imperishable music.
The color palette of the poster:
Typography
A variety of types and sizes of fonts have been used but they all look consistent and in order, which classified the priority of different information. As you can see, the film director is trying to minimize his presence but highlight the film and the artist.
Balance and Grid
Balance is achieved through grid and the repetition in color scheme. Typically the poster has been divided into three pieces. First is the quote of the film, the second is the information about the film, and the bottom is the back of the artist. Each grid has the color of green, black and white which shows harmony of the poster.
Space and Blank
I really like the angle how the background image shot. It is a world where there is something unknown in front of you and something behinds just let them behind. I especially like the blank and space left on the poster, which not only meet the aesthetics of graphic design, but also left some thinking to the audience.
There is a Chinese version of this poster which is a little bit different from the English one. The purpose of the Chinese version is to tell the audience when the film is going to be released so I guess that is why all texts are in the middle of the poster. It seems like Chinese audiences are quite aware of the awards so the designer put a lists of awards at the top of the poster and the fonts become the third largest size on the poster.
Besides, the background image has been blurred to stand out the text. It is interesting to see different versions reflect different culture and psychological behavior of the audiences.
