The Poster I Made for The Werewolves of Miller's Hollow

My teacher told me to design a poster for a board game called The Werewolf of Miller's Hollow. I did some research and decided to make a photoshopped, digital poster that embodies the vibe of real human beings, friends playing the board game as characters of that story. Juenzo and Abrill. 

The poster’s concept art highlights the two important key characters of the group game called “The Werewolves of Millers Hollow.” The pilgrims who close their eyes at night to sleep and the werewolves who open their eyes at night to kill. In the little village of Millers Hollow, where this portable party game is set, werewolves commit murders every night. Before the village loses its final few residents, it is now necessary to seize control and vanquish this ancient evil. The poster has a cheeky sense of trouble brewing in the air about it while the beautiful, blindfolded lady Abrill, gives the poster a sense of drama. Technically, the guy Juenzo isn't really a werewolf. The person with wolf characteristics is a friend of the redhead, and he's secretly supposed to be a werewolf since that's what the card he picked up states. The background is a photoshop stencil effect on a pilgrim town photograph. I like how it shows pilgrims gathered and running around town. It’s like an intriguing scene from a movie that makes you hope that the good guys in the game win. I find playing this card game to be very captivating, especially when the special roles are used. The Sheriff, The Hunter, the Witch, the Little Kid, The Fortune Teller. The Werewolves of Millers is a guessing game. Because no one knows who is who and everyone has knowledge to contribute and identities to hide at the same time, this people card game is incredibly intriguing. 

The game starts by the moderator introducing the scenario, which is a sleepy small town, maybe in an alternate dimension. Late 16th-century Pilgrim area of the Southeast South Carolina region. The residents of the town are individuals who are focused on maintaining their farms and crops on a daily basis. One afternoon, a bunch of schoolchildren head down to the stream at the edge of town to go frog catching. The silence is abruptly broken by a scream as the kids scramble up the hillside to their parents' arms for protection. Words like "Terrifying!" and "Blood!" almost escape their shaky mouths as they point trembling fingers at the willow trees along the creek. When the grownups get at the creek, they see one evening guard reclining against a willow tree. His body was ripped, with gashes everywhere. Is he alive? What can be capable of doing this? The word werewolf flows into their minds. The search for answers is on! To appease their fans, this game has released several expansion packs after its initial 2001 release.

De Stijl art and Dadaism art merges

    I was highly inspired by Theo van Doesburg and John Heartfield. Theo was heavily influenced by Wassily Kandinsky. Theo van Doesburg made the switch from a representational painting style to one that prioritized a minimalistic and geometric approach because of this influence. The Dutch artist championed the De Stijl artistic movement and has inspired many graphic designers over the decades with his thought-provoking art theories. The artists of De Stijl produced artworks that stretched far beyond painting and sculpture. They aimed for a unified synthesis of form and function in all media, covering literature, music, typography, and industrial design in addition to the fine and applied arts. Founded in 1917 by the ground-breaking abstract artists Piet Mondrian and Theo van Doesburg. De Stijl magazine’s name literally translates to “The Style” in Dutch. The De Stijl movement emerged as an Interwar Period artistic expression in reaction to the catastrophic devastation of World War I. In its effort to separate from the intricately ornamental and excessive artwork of previous eras, the movement strived for simplified and minimalist works of art.

In 1916, John Heartfield and George Grosz experimented with a form of art and combining images created what is now recognized as Photomontage. John Heartfield crafted highly political images that left a lasting impression with the Photomontage technique. He was known for taking iconic images from the illustrated press - like photos of well-known politicians or noteworthy events - and re-arranging them to form new and provocative messages. John Heartfield and George Grosz were pioneers of the German Dadaist movement, actively participating in the renowned Berlin Club Dada (1916-1920). Through their trailblazing work, they were instrumental in elevating the concept of montage to an art form that is recognized worldwide today.

My Creative Rationale: In much the same way that the De Stijl artists did, I recognized the boundaries of my poster space and filled it with geometric shapes. The background of the poster is made up of original De Stijl magazine pages that I found online. I added the De Stijl magazine name at the top. I also used a font that resembles Theo van Doesburg’s original lettering at the bottom page. The words written make a sentence that is similar to what John Heartfield wrote on the photomontage art piece of “The Happy Elephants.” I changed it to happy animals because in my art I included elephants and cows. Theo van Doesburg created cow art. He began with a series of figurative sketches of the cow and then transformed them into a geometrical composition. I wanted to be different but still show how I was influenced by Theo and John, so I drew John Heartfield’s happy elephants with wings with my pencils and then I turned them into shapes in Adobe Illustrator. I added both the pencil drawing and the shape components in my poster. Theo’s cows thus were turned into a photomontage in my art and I added wings to the cows to match the happy winged elephants. Photomontage is the method and outcome of combining multiple photos by cutting, pasting, rearranging and layering them together to form a unique image and that is what I did in my art poster. Dadaists revolted against the capitalistic logic and reasoning of their bourgeois society, which had driven them to war, by utilizing artistic forms that appeared to disregard rationality and instead celebrate chaos and absurdity. Thus, my art poster has a bit of chaos in the layering of the geometric shapes in the background. I merged Theo and John’s art styles to create my art piece. Combining them was thrilling. This was a fun artistic experiment for me.

The next page has original works from Theo van Doesburg and John Heartfield. After this are pictures of my art poster inspired by them.

My geometric shape sketch

My drawing of the Happy Elephants

The first rough draft

The final product

I designed a WW1 Vintage Poster style in Photoshop

    I am not into wars and politics so when I was told to recreate any WW1 art posters that used recruiting tactics I wasn't sure what to make...So I Googled and did research and I came across a vintage "Join the Land Army!" poster. 

    What was the Land Army? I dugged deeper and found out that women of the Land Army were assigned to farms in need of extra help, acting as their farmers' employees and undertaking the same duties previously assigned to the men. At first, many farmers were not willing to accept the idea of women toiling in the fields, but labor scarcity made the decision for them and the capability of farmerettes to accomplish farming tasks became evident. Women in the U.S.A, regardless of their role in society, played a part in the war effort too. All housewives were asked to sign a pledge card promising to follow the Food Administrator’s advice on managing their households, such as canning food, cultivating a backyard vegetable garden, and restricting their consumption of certain goods like meat, wheat, and fats. Above all, women everywhere were asked to do their utmost to lift the spirits of those they held dear both in their home and across the sea.

    The women of the Land Army in WWI inspired me. I absolutely loved the original yellow Land Army recruiting poster. The painted lady is made in an almost vector art style which inspired me to try and recreate it and I managed to do something similar. I also loved the “Get behind the girl he left behind him, Join the Land Army.” Slogan. I kept this meaning in my refreshed slogan but changed the words a bit. I thought the shadow of the soldier behind the farming lady was profound so I put a soldier saluting’s shadow behind my farming lady looking all around her for help. The lady looking for help on the farm on my poster conveys the recruiting that is needed. I also made my poster speak to Canadian women by adding a Canadian flag to my art piece.

The original vintage Land Army poster

My own creation