BACKGROUND: The purpose of this project was to create a conceptual advertising campaign for a movie that includes both digital and print collateral, informing audiences about the movie and where to watch.DESIGN PROBLEM: To create a redesign that speaks to the themes and feelings of Fargo, while evoking a more minimalist and modern aesthetic. I love the original design of this movie but wanted to experiment with what the branding might look like if it were made today.
DESIGN PROCESS: I started by looking through screengrabs of the movie for inspiration and remembered how much I specifically love this film for the cast’s performances. They play darkly funny Midwesterners and their performances are over-the-top in the best way. Because the actors are super expressive and emotive, I knew I wanted to capture their faces on the poster in some way. When choosing a color palette, I gravitated toward colors that emulated snow, blood, and other key aspects of the film. The palette had to be muted but interesting enough to still capture people’s attention when walking on the street or scrolling on social media.
DESIGN SOLUTION: For the initial poster, I created small vignettes of pivotal scenes, cropped closely to just eyes or face. I applied a combination of grain and noise filters and then use the Hue/Saturation Colorize feature to give each photo a sepia effect that leaned maroon to match the color palette. For typefaces, I chose Aviano Sans for the primary, because it looks like the Fargo theater sign that’s famous in the town itself and for a secondary typeface, I chose Brush Script because it nods to the original logo’s cursive typeface.
LOGOTYPE & COLOR PALETTE
TYPEFACE
Headers and Titles
Aviano sans
Upper Case ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ Lower Case abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz Symbols ÂÊÔăâêô Numbers 1234567890 Punctuation and More ‘?’“!”(%)[#]{@}/&\<-+÷×=> Headers and Titles Brush Script MT
Upper Case ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ Lower Case abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz Symbols ÂÊÔăâêô Numbers 1234567890 Punctuation and More ‘?’“!”(%)[#]{@}/&\<-+÷×=>