lbella | Paprika

Paprika

A movie poster redesign for the 2006 animated film, Paprika.

For this project, we were all assigned to watch a film and then create a 24"x36" movie poster for it without using any imagery or pictures from the movie.

I chose the 2006 animated film Paprika. It's a sci-fi psychological thriller anime where the main character is a scientist who uses a prototype of an advanced technology to enter the dreams of patients and try to interpret their dreams. However with technology so powerful it could easily be dangerous in the wrong hands, which is exactly what happens when one day the prototype gets stolen.

This movie was something I had been wanting to watch for a while because I was already aware that it touches on very surreal themes and it felt like there'd be a lot to work with if we couldn't use pre-existing images or images from the film itself.

Sketches

There were lots of different ideas I had for this poster. I made tons of different thumbnails referencing different scenes from the film that stuck out to me the most. If you've seen this film then you might already be aware that its themes tend to go from dreamlike and surreal to outright creepy, so a lot of these initial thumbnails do tend to lean more on the creepy sides of the movie because that's what stuck out in my head the most at the time.

However, looking at these pages of early thumbnails, I never really felt too attached to any of these directions. Some of them felt like things that have been done before for completely different media properties, and others felt like it didn't really feel like it was advertising the film but were just creepy fanmade artworks for the sake of being creepy.

So one day out of frustration, I decided to sketch out this one idea that's been stuck in my head. At the time I thought it was really stupid idea that just made me laugh because I was thinking "well, if I can't directly draw the main character into my poster design, what if I just symbolize her with a pepper and a whole bunch of paprika?"

For context, the main character goes by the nickname "Paprika" when she enters dreams and is portrayed as an alter ego.

Weirdly, this concept became something I liked so much that I actually wanted to make this the poster. However, I did end up making a few big changes: I kept the echoing head silhouettes, but I replaced the pepper and the paprika with a silhouette of the main character falling through all the heads.

I felt like this really worked as like a visual summary of the core part of the film and it was also really visually interesting to catch people's attention.

The one dumb sketch that sent me in the right direction...

The Finished Poster

After I made those changes, I started illustrating it and adding even more visual interest; such as making the head silhouettes neon lights and making them look as if they're glowing while Paprika falls into another dream.

I had absolutely fallen in love with this poster design once it all came together and I got it printed out very large. When it's hung up in a physical space it absolutely looks like it's glowing and it's magnificent to see.

Graphic Design

There's lots of things I love about graphic design, but I have a heavy lean towards brand identity, logo design, and motion graphics.

Virtual-K

My little art shop (or "art diner") where I sell my work in the form of stickers, prints, posters, keychain charms, and more!

LBella Branding 2020

Bold, colorful, and fun brand identity design I've done for myself!

"Paprika" Poster Redesign

A movie poster redesign for the 2006 animated film, Paprika.

Virtual-K Sticker Club

A monthly "sticker of the month" club that people can subscribe to and get fun stickers in the mail each month. Works as an extension of my art diner, Virtual-K.