No idea who made this, but it's rather good. Of course, I'd recommend a South Eastern crop myself...
With the release of the film just weeks away, the Dark Knight marketing campaign is nearing its end. The sheer scale of it is impressive, but I can't help thinking, is that it? When it kicked off months ago, the viral marketing looked like it was heading somewhere new and interesting, but it's become pretty boring.
Take the posters for example. At last count, there were approximately twelve million different designs. None of which are particularly great. I'm not a fan of the multiple-poster route - I'd much rather have one really good strong visual identity rather than a bunch of okayish Photoshopped images with the bat-logo slapped on as an afterthought. The latest one (above) is pretty good, but it gets lost amongst all the others.
It always amazes me how little they integrate the one obvious medium – comics – into these things. For example, if you are going to have a set of posters, why not have each one done by a different artist already connected to the Bat? Frank Miller, Tim Sale, Dave McKean, Jim Lee, Brian Bolland - all with their own distinctive styles, and all part of the 80s–00s Batman that the Dark Knight takes it's inspiration from - would each come up with something amazing.
Oh well. Maybe next time.
UPDATE: Check out Khoi Vinh's reassessment of (almost) all the Batman films.
Last night, in a raspberry beer-induced bout of credit card annihilation, the Doc and I booked a holiday in NYC for the new year.
VERY EXCITED.
I got off the bus the other day to see Iron Man holding hands with a very young Mask (the Jim Carrey one, not the Eric Stoltz one), using a cash machine while a tank rolled by. This was in the centre of York.
I put together a Muxtape a few weeks ago, and then completely forgot about it until today, when I read a post by Khoi Vinh about the pros and cons of Muxtape's minimalism.
One of the tracks on my - let's be frank about this - astonishingly good mix is German Bold Italic by Towa Tei and Kylie Minogue. It just struck me - is this the only song out there that's about a typeface? Does anyone know of any others?
Anyway, here it is, have a listen.
This morning I discovered a version of Hello Spaceboy performed by Bowie and the Foo Fighters in my iTunes library. I have no idea where or when I got that, but it's rather brilliant.
Coincidentally, I also saw the artwork for the movie Moon for the first time today, directed by Bowie's son Duncan Jones (aka Zowie). You just know that when this film comes out, at least one mag will run an article entitled Hello Spaceboy (plus there'll be a few Space Oddities and Starmen).
Anyway, I'd just like to say I got there first. Ha.
Now, about that artwork. The one on the left is the one they're running with. The one on the right I plucked from the website of the designer, All City Media*, who are bold enough to put up alternative concepts for projects. Now is it just me, or is the rejected poster far, far superior to the other one? Maybe it's a bit too non-filmy for the distributors, but it's really memorable, and would give the film it's own distinct voice.
Oh well.
* This is my second poke-at-All-City post in a few days (after poo-pooing their Once poster). This is because I love their work and look at their site a lot, and not just because I like poking them.
The good Doctor and I finally got round to seeing Once last week, and I have to say it's one of the best films I've seen in a long long time. It's truly romantic (not manipulative, pull-at-the-heartstrings manufactured romantic) and the songs are deservedly Oscar-winningly good. As that quote in the poster states, it is close to perfect. Close. So very close.
Why why why why why did All City Media (designers of mostly amazing film posters and packaging) have to shoe-horn in a god-awful visual pun into the artwork? It's a pretty picture that captures the feel of the movie - they're chatting away, he's clearly a musician, there's a bit of Dublin in the background, and they're walking... ALONG A BLOODY GUITAR.
This would have been a great poster for something frothily bland, like Music & Lyrics, but for Once... it just seems so very wrong.
A feature of Apple's Leopard OS, Spaces is a brilliant way of keeping your on-screen life tidy. You can assign different applications (or windows of the same application) to individual spaces, essentially turning your display into a wall of uncluttered working areas. You work in one at a time, but with one squeeze of the mouse, all spaces become visible.
In theory.
Unfortunately, there is a bug that prevents Photoshop from running properly - certain tools simply freeze up. With the Mac being the computer of choice for creative sorts the world over, this seems like a pretty big problem. It's not entirely clear if this is Apple's mess to clean up or Adobe's, but it's been there for months, and it's about time somebody sorted it. Spaces could radically change the way I work, but at the moment it's just a pain in the backside.
Boo, and furthermore, hiss
