Original
I decided to take a stab at re/designing the “Dazed and Confused” DVD cover for my forth re/design. I have always thought that the original cover was ugly and did not really construct the right atmosphere of the movie. Going into this design, I found my self struggling with the perception of a DVD cover in American culture. A sudden realization into the designing process told me that I could not deviate too much from this perception in order to not keep my audiences attention. What I mean by perception in this manner is that most DVD covers in America are in the same format from one to another. A basic Title, with a tag line, and a picture, is what our culture expects to find when looking at movies when deciding to buy or rent. I decided to keep this basic outline, but add in a little flare that could connect the whole piece together and add cultural perception to the cult minded film.
Perception
Perception was a hard aspect to handle in this re/design. I wanted to make the movie cover relaxed and free from constraints because the movie is about teenagers trying to do just that. I thought to myself on how to group different parts of information with out using borders. I was able to do this on the front of the DVD cover by using my text effetely. For the title of the movie I went with a text called “Broken Tour Poster” found on dafount.com. In my mind this text conveys a relaxed teenage mind that could possible be under the influence of drugs and or alcohol. The text is different, not usual, and most importantly, a cool way that might be doodled in a teenagers notebook. I used a flag effect to bend the text, but each word as a separate wave. This adds to the psychedelic mood of the movie and the need to be free as a person. The tag line under the title used a simple Helvetica text because of the easiness to read the information. I decided not to use an effect on this section of information in order to help the user understand that it is separate from the title. Something new in my design that is different from the original is the use of adding a main actor line at the bottom of the page. These actors were not big name actors when the film was released in 1993, but in 2011 these actors are known for their works in other films. I wanted to keep the back page simple, so I used Helvetica again for the description of the movie. I was able to separate the two sections by implementing a landscape picture between the two parts of information. The first section of text is a basic description, while the second section of text is a more broad description of what to expect.
Culture
Because the film is considered a “cult classic” and that cult classics are marketed to a specific audience, I knew what my audience would want to see. I did not deviate from the clouds in the background, but did deviate from the psychedelic nature of color in the original. In my mind the original has a mood of gloomy, depressing nature, which does not embody what the film is about. The film is funny and is showing the life of different groups of teenagers in high school. I hate clichés, and the one about high school being hard and depressing is not what is found in this movie. There are parts in the movie that might be considered hard and depressing, but the over all them conveyed is kids trying to find who they are as a person and deviating from the status quo. I also implemented the “intoxicated yellow smiley face” because it’s a symbol that the audience would recognize with the movie. The use of the peace sign was not implemented because although the sign is used in the movie, the symbol it self is from the 1960’s, not the 1970’s. I also implemented the DVD logo and the Universal logo on the spin of the cover to make it look more like an actual DVD. The audience would expect these kinds of logos on any major DVD cover.
Rhetoric
As I have stated before in this post, I wanted to keep this design simple and carefree. When thinking about rhetoric and how I was going to implement those feelings I decided to use two images, front and back. The front image was edited with a blur tool to make it look like the characters are just floating in the air, but still acting like teenagers with confused looks. The back image is just an image of your basic high school hang out in front of a building. I also used this image to imply Matthew McConaughey famous quote, “That’s what I love about these high school girls, man. I get older, they stay the same age.” I didn’t want to type it out because I think that it will connect with two different viewers in my audience. One viewer will have already seen the movie and know the quote from the picture, the other viewer who has not seen the movie will make the connection after seeing the movie and remember that scene next time they look at the cover. A risky move, but I believe the “cult film” audience will enjoy it. I did not use a blur on this image because I wanted to separate the two different parts of information. On the bottom of the back page I used the same text that was on the original. This text seems to be the same on all DVD covers, so I did not want to deviate to hurt my audience perception.
All in all, I think my re/design came out well. I kept it simple, and clean, while adding visual cues that will trigger in the audiences mind. In my opinion, this re/design is more pleasing to the eye of the audience and captures the atmosphere of the movie better than the original. I hope you enjoy with what I came up with.
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