In response of those mood boards that I developed two posts ago, I thought of expanding the colour and typography ideas and justify them.
Primary possible colour scheme
As I stated that specific post, I aimed to have retro colour scheme that is either conveys suspicious or an intense theme.
Mister Retro
As you can see from on the image above, the first colour scheme is inspired by the Mister Retro's artwork. This colour scheme uses different shades of blue to create a design that features colours that blend well. The light blue represents the highlights, mid blue for the mid tones and the darker blue for the shadow. This is a great example of a colour pallet that uses similar colours that prevents the design from coming across as dull. Blue does compliments the red black very well. The dark blue enables the red to be striking, therefore, making it the main focal point.
This is a potential colour scheme because one of my designs includes a night and a day scene. The dark blue represents the night time whilst the light blue is the day time sky colour. These two colours have got the right saturation that prevents them from coming too striking. In terms of imagery, blue is iconic because the Soc's mustangs are that specific colour. This colour has also leave me with loads of options. The colour scheme will enable a calm or a dangerous scene to work because blue is associated with different moods: calm, excitement and mystery. Red is a colour that is associated with the American diner. This colour will enable the sign containing the text to stand out. It may enhance the power of the words because red comes across as aggressive. I will not attempt to use this colour as blood because this has to appeal to parents and their children who are in the 8-15 age demographic.
Mister Retro 2
Unlike the first example, the Motorphycho image looks too striking for the audience. However, the colour of the background, cream,appeals to a board audience. It is clean and would enable the blue to look captivating. Cream is a good choice for representing the road marks because it compliments grey, which is the colour of American roads. Applying this into one of my design will create a scheme that has different contrast of colour, making the visual more appealing to the target audience.
San Francisco and Work hard
The one thing that these two images have in common is the use of the colour orange. Orange is the perfect colour for reprinting metal, fire or an image with a dynamic colour scheme. Orange is iconic signifier that symbolises the colour of the Oklahoma flag. This would make obvious to people who are aware about the flag that this story is based in this stage without knowing the book. This is also good colour to bring tension into the design because blue and orange are on the opposite sides of the colour wheel, making them completely different.
Both colour schemes also include blue. The blue with the purple tint is particularly effective because the colour would enhance the impact of the shadows. This will give the design more depth, therefore, making it more captivating to the audience. I do thing that black such a negative colour, this colour will do the design justice because it make the strokes look different.
These are other examples of colours from images that were selected due to their iconic imagery. Most of them though have too many colour that will create too many
The sun set image has got the best colour scheme. Instead of using saturated and primary colours the range have a faded appearence to make the colours of the sunset look clean and relaxing. Blue, green and yellow are not usually a great combination but due good use of saturation levels, they all blend in. I also feel that these colours enable the bright orange light and the black hills to stand out. This could be beneficial for the hills and the lighting effects because America is well known for having bright sun light.
For my font choices, these are just examples of text I intend to use to symbolise many aspects of the story and conveys a retro feel. I intend to either pay for a very good set of fonts or alter these examples in Illustrator.
The text above is inspired by the Mister Retro. The interior sections of the text features a thin stroke that makes the character resembles a road. The font design complements The Outsiders theme because many scenes feature roads. To ensure that message is conveyed, the font's inner stroke will be dashed. There should not be any shadows or other effects accompanying the design because may reduce the space for the counters. To make this readable, figure and ground should be applied. The dashed lines should appear as if they have entered the text to ensure that title looks interesting.
Although this is not to scale, I feel that to provide the best reading experience, the main body should be serif. To ensure the the 1960's theme is conveyed, I will design my own serif text that readable and has aspects from the story. The serif should have enough kerning to prevent the serif being illegible. As for the leading, I aim not to separated too much to ensure that the audience can read it in appropriate pace. I am also applying drop caps that features a style representing the imagery, the gangs or the scenes to ensure that the text is captivating. The main body text should be 4x smaller than the heading.
This is another example of a font with a tine outline. I decided chose this possible font style because it looks masculine, a characteristic of both gangs. This will give the overall design a sense of power and sets a crime based theme. To appeal to a female audience, I would have to present it in a way catches their attention. This could range from a menu, Coca Cola or an American sign. To make the text illegible, the r's appearances needs changing because the positioning of the counter and the curve makes it resemble of a n.
This would be a great opportunity to create an anomaly make a certain word stand out. This font may possibility be used for the letter 'the'. This ensure that the text is readable.
This a font that has great characteristics. The design of the characters makes me associate this with American diner at the time of the 1960's. The design features capital letters that exceeds the cap and x height. In a way, it is considered as a drop cap, therefore it makes the text readable. The positioning of the cross bar is another attribute that makes this font appealing to look at.
The only issue I have with the text is the outline. I think that the type face design should get rid off the stroke because it makes it little bit illegible. I think that having a thick fill is a great solution for enhancing the text design. It will be more legible and have still a characteristic of an American diner.
This is a great font that can be effectively used for presenting the author's name. Although it is a script face, it looks modern because the counters are not geometrical. The design of the ascender features a curve that signifies hand drawn writing very well. This is appropriate because many retro artist use this type of font to create a visual language that feels nostalgic. This type of font would be a great addition to the newspaper idea. This will present the art style of 60's to a new generation.
This is the last font that really caught my attention. The design of the san serif makes me associated the design of the font with tire marks. Tire marks would be a great design to implement because it signifies that these outsiders are breaking the rules by breaking the speed limit on a regular basis. I also think that will bring tension for the mustang and signifies that the car is really fast.
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