Copyright Š 2012 by Richard Carter All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Printed in the United Kingdom First Printing, 2012 ISBN 0-9000000-0-0 Richard Carter Publishing 105 Bradford Road Bath England www.richcdesigns.wordpress.com
Motion Pictures
Rich Carter
This book is dedicated to olly who never fails to inspire me.
Contents
1 Introduction 2 star wars trilogy poster series 3 Rolling roadshow poster series 4 Empire magazine work 5 Self-initiated movie print work 6 self-initiated print work 7 penguin classic book covers 8 paper cuts 9 bio index
1
INTRODUCTION
O
lly, Wossy or simply Olly Moss. Not much is known of this enigmatic twenty-something graphic designer from England; and for Olly, that’s how he intends it to stay. For him it’s more important for the art to do the talking; something that is already happening. His self-initiated reworking of iconic film posters has caught the imagination of designers and film fans worldwide and have gained Olly a cult following. Already snapped up by clients such as Lucasfilm, Levis, Nike, GQ, The New York Times, The Guardian and Empire Magazine, his stock is certainly rising. Although never formally trained as a designer, Olly Moss was always a keen illustrator. During his university studies in Birmingham where he studied Literature, Olly continued to perfect his craft in his own time. To him, drawing was just something to pass the time. ‘To me, design was just a hobby that took off!’ he explains. Yes it did… This book aims to uncover this inspirational artist and offer a brief glimpse into the mind of an iconic designer in the making. It will look closer at key stages in the development of his career so far, taking in the now famous Star Wars trilogy poster designs he worked on in collaboration with Mondo, to the hugely popular run of posters he was commissioned for by the Rolling Stone Film Festival and ending with his first sell out show, Paper Cuts. So sit back and make yourself comfy, the show’s just about to start…
11
2
star wars
Star Wars
Star Wars 2010
14
T
he Star Wars posters were a huge coup for Mondo, the art house working in collaboration with Olly. It would take them a huge amount of effort to win over George Lucas, who is notoriously protective of his Star Wars imagery. In the end, after just over a year of negotiations, Lucasfilm agreed to license the characters and worlds that would go on to grace the posters. This three poster series was to be crafted as a traditional, theatrical one sheet movie poster. Each design would be a three colour screen print and would show a colourful silhouette of C-3PO, Darth Vader and Boba Fett that are filled with detailed imagery from Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. To create a completely original artwork for such an adored film was a huge ask, especially considering the wealth of the visuals which are already iconic. The re-design of these posters needed to be different from what people are used to seeing from the franchise whilst still retaining that essential Star Wars feel. Olly began by re-watching all of the original movies with a sketchbook in hand and things really progressed from there. Undaunted by the task, Olly knew the direction he wanted to take from early on in the sketching process. From the initial sketches the designs progressed and turned into very detailed pieces, crammed with information, encapsulating and almost summarising each of the three films within each poster. From the twin suns of Tatooine, which doubled as C-3P0’s eyes, to the Bespin’s T-shaped Cloud City mirrored in the bounty hunter’s mask or the forest of Endor ended in gnarled branches that drew in details of Vader’s trademark helmet; Moss’s attention to detail is evident. Luckily for Olly and Mondo, all of the work they put into this project paid off. Lucasfilm were so impressed with the final outcome of each poster that they continue their working relationship with Olly to this day. As a ‘thank you‘ to George Lucas, Mondo even sent over prints of each of the poster designs made with special metallic and glow-inthe-dark ink.
15
Star Wars
Empire Strikes Back 2010
16
Return Of The Jedi 2010
17
3
rolling roadshow poster series
Rolling Roadshow
Dirty Harry 2010
20
T
he 2010 Alamo Drafthouse’s Rolling Roadshow is something very cool for movie fans. The tour goes across the United States showing free screenings of classic movies outdoors and in places where the films were either shot or had taken place. For the 2010 festival, Olly Moss was commissioned to design a run of posters for each film being shown at the festival. The films included in the tour were classics such as: The Blues Brothers, There Will Be Blood and Rocky. The run of posters produced by Olly used the same orange, black and white colour palette throughout and incorporates clever use of negative space, which is demonstrated skilfully on the Dirty Harry poster, where Clint Eastwood’s face appears in the outline of the gun. Not for the first time Moss has inventively taken the individual films out of their original context and harmonised them into a series, using iconic scenes and references from each of the films to form the basis of his designs.
21
Rolling Roadshow
Jackie Brown 2010
22
There Will Be Blood 2010
23
Rolling Roadshow
Convoy 2010
24
Robocop 2010
25
Rolling Roadshow
The Blues Brothers 2010
26
Rocky 2010
27
Rolling Roadshow
The Godfather Part II 2010
28
On The Waterfront 2010
29
4
empire magazine
Empire Magazine
Eat Pray Love 2010
32
W
ith his status on the rise it didn’t take Empire Magazine long to sit up and take notice. Britain‘s biggest selling monthly film magazine were so impressed with Olly’s work that they quickly commissioned him to design interpretations for up and coming films throughout 2011. These posters would appear in the magazine every month and attracted huge press attention and praise.
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Empire Magazine
The Social Network 2010
34
Harry Potter 2010
35
Empire Magazine
The A-Team 2010
36
Sex And The City 2 2010
37
Empire Magazine
Clash Of The Titans 2010
38
Hot Tub Time Machine 2010
39
Empire Magazine
Alice In Wonderland 2010
40
The Wolfman 2010
41
5
movie prints
Movie Prints
Above - Die Hard 2009 Top Right - The Great Dictator 2009 Bottom Right - The Deer Hunter 2009
44
O
lly’s fascination with the film poster emerged from an early age. What started as a passion in motion pictures soon turned into an obsession, one which has gone into creating an entire career. Now Olly is seen as the goto-guy for movie posters, something that his self-initiated poster designs helped in securing. What started Olly designing movie posters was an exhibition call Now Showing at the Cosh Gallery in London. Here classic film posters were recreated by popular artists of the time and it was the place which gave birth to Olly’s very own creative spark. After his visit to the show Olly started doodling around with his own poster mock-ups and ended up with the very clever run of classic movies all set within a very distinct red, white and black colour theme. These posters soon took off and gathered attention for him and before long he had his first major commission. Since that run of posters Moss has kept his formula pretty simple, keeping most of the artwork hand drawn whilst using both Photoshop and illustrator.
Movie Prints
The Evil Dead 2010
46
Four Lions 2010
47
Movie Prints
Taxi Driver 2009
48
Indiana Jones and the last Crusade 2008
49
Movie Prints
Thor 2011
50
Source Code 2011
51
Movie Prints
Moon 2010
52
Rubber 2010
53
Movie Prints
Captain America 2011
54
Captain America 2011
55
Movie Prints
Let Me In 2010
56
An American Werewolf In London 2011
57
Movie Prints
Star Trek 2010
58
Star Trek 2010
59
Movie Prints
Rain Man 2009
60
Mad Men 2010
61
6
self-initiated prints
Self-initated Prints
Lost 2009
64
T
his next batch of posters shows early work from Moss’s portfolio, most of which start out as simple loose sketches inside his beaten up Moleskin notebook. From there they usually end up on screen or in print as pure tongue in cheek brilliance. Normally done as self-initiated mock-ups the humour of the designs are evident. Moss brilliantly merges his own observations and humour and presents them as clear, eye-catching designs. Something his hoards of fans will tend to agree with as any Olly Moss print nowadays can be seen to fetch up to thousands of pounds.
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Self-initated Prints
Shoot The Baddies 2009
66
Health & Safety 2010
67
Self-initated Prints
Let’s Jam 2010
68
Chicago Sleepover 2010 Sea Saw 2010
69
Self-initated Prints
Master Race 2010
70
Hell Maybe 2010
71
Self-initated Prints
Panic 2008
72
Saul Burger 2009
73
Self-initated Prints
Ban The Clan 2009
74
Wolverine or Batman? 2010 F-Bomb 2010
75
Self-initated Prints
Engineers 2009
76
The Search 2009
77
Self-initated Prints
Untitled Kingdom 2008
78
Blind 2008
79
Self-initated Prints
Tracksuit Bottoms 2009
80
Animal Hangers 2009 Shades 2009
81
Self-initated Prints
Honestly 2009
82
Play Records 2009
83
Self-initated Prints
G 2009
84
Evolver 2009
85
7
penguin book covers
Penguin Classics 2009 1 Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare 2 GoldenEye 3 The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time 4 Grand Theft Auto IV 5 Half Life 6 Metal Gear Solid 7 Silent Hill 8 The Sims 2
A
fter studying English Litrature at University and with being totally obsessed with popular culture it was always inevitable Olly would one day merge them both together. This didn’t take long though as early work of his used his love of classic video games such as Metal Gear Solid and Grand Theft Auto and used them in a very familiar setting for Olly. He used the classic Penguin book design as his base and made what some have called his finest work. All eight designs use the same style and have cleverly borrowed parts of each game as witty reference points.
Penguin Book Covers
90
91
8
paper cuts
Paper Cuts
94
I
t was to be expected then that Olly Moss would soon be the host of his very first art exhibition. What wasn’t expected though was the show’s content. Shrouded in secrecy for months, the show was finally revealed at Gallery 1988 in Los Angles.
Paper Cuts is a show unlike any other art exhibition and also marks a huge change in direction for Olly. The show features over 300 individually hand drawn, black Victorian silhouettes of almost every pop culture character you can think of from movies, TV, comics and video games. Each silhouette has been laser cut, mounted and then housed in its own individual frame. The attention to detail on each one is just incredible. So why the change in direction? For Olly, much like any other artist, the drive is to continue to keep yourself fresh and innovative. He could of easily done a show with new movie posters and kept his fans happy but that’s something that he didn’t want to do. Designing posters for films he likes has to stop somewhere. Nowadays Olly states that he only designs movie posters when commissioned. Paper Cuts marks just the start for Olly. It marks a change he’s wanted to do for a long time now, well ever since he designed the Penguin video game book cover for The Sims. The seed was planted way back then. Olly loved the aesthetic that pieced offered and knew it could work as an entire show. Since then the idea has snowballed and within six months or so, Paper Cuts was born. So does this mark an entirely new change in Direction for Olly and leaving his popular culture routes behind? No way, Olly states. ‘I’m never going to stop working with pop culture. I wouldn’t be interest in doing anything else really, I love it, it’s so much fun for me. I’m totally obsessed. But people always ask how you justify doing work with pop culture. It’s kind of a pretentious justification but if you look at classic art, a lot of it is religious and mythic iconography and symbolism. Now a days it’s a similar thing. It’s just instead of having Hercules, Athena and Apollo it’s Darth Vader and Optimus Prime!
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Paper Cuts
96
97
Paper Cuts
98
99
Paper Cuts Gallery 188, 7020 Melrose Avenue, Los Angeles, CA.
100
101
Bio
Olly Moss Born in United Kindom, 1987.
Clients include: Sony Entertainment
Lucasfilm
The New York Times
Apple
CBS Films
Penguin Books
Threadless
Paramount
Urban Outfitters
Levis
Nike
Time Magazine
Index A
G
B
h
The A Team - 35 Alice in Wonderland - 40 An American Warewolf in London - 57 Animal Tags - 81
The Blues Brothers - 26 Ban the Clan - 74 Blind - 79
C
Convoy - 24 Clash of the Titans - 38 Captain America - 54 & 55 Chicago Sleepover - 69 Call of Duty - 90
D
Dirty Harry - 20 Deer Hunter - 44 Die Hard - 44
E
The Empire Stikes Back - 16 Eat Prey Love - 32 The Evil Dead - 46 Engineers - 76 Evolver - 85
F
Four Lions - 47 F-Bomb - 75
The Godfather II - 28 G - 84 Grand Theft Auto - 90 Golden Eye - 90
Harry Potter - 35 Hot Tub Time Machine - 39 Health & Safety - 67 Hell Maybe - 71 Honestly - 82 Half Life - 91
i
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - 49
J
Jackie Brown - 22 Joggers - 80
K L
The Last Dictator - 44 Let Me In - 56 Lost - 64 Let’s Jam - 68 Legend of Zelda - 90
M
Moon - 52 Mad Men - 61 Master Race - 70 Metal Gear Solid - 91
N o
On The Waterfront - 29
Shoot the Baddie - 66 Sea Saw - 69 Saul Burger - 73 The Search - 77 Shades - 81 Silent Hill - 91 The Sims - 91
T
There Will Be Blood - 23 Taxi Driver - 48 Thor - 50
P
U
Q
V
r
w
Paper Cuts - 93-101
Return of the Jedi - 17 Robocop - 25 Rocky - 27 Rubber - 53 Rain Man - 60 Records - 83
s
Star Wars - 14 The Social Network - 34 Sex in the City - 37 Source Code - 51 Star Trek - 58 & 59
Untitled Kingdom - 78
The Wolfman - 41 Wolverine or Batman - 75
X y Z
I don’t think I’m ev pop culture. I w anything else real
ever going to stop working with I wouldn’t be interested in doing ally, I love it, it’s so much fun for me. I’m totally obsessed.
Olly Moss