Tone and Color

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      One of my interests is poster design. This is the 1954 original movie poster for Godzilla: the movie, a Japanese science-fiction film. Godzilla is a Japanese movie monster, which was created by nuclear detonators. Throughout the series of movies, Godzilla has been portraying as the hero or destroyer of the city. Looking at the poster illustrates the climax of the movie. The couple on the bottom left of the poster shows authority as they are looking directly at Godzilla and the size of Godzilla is empathized. The range of tones on Godzilla adds texture on Godzilla body from head to toe. This helps the audience understands how Godzilla looks like. It also illustrates the vintage feel of the poster. The audience can easily tell that the poster was not recently created for this year. The tones on the landscape show detail and actions as there are explosion and debris all over the city. As for the element of basic design, the scale of Godzilla is highly emphasize. Godzilla’s size is larger than the couple and the Japanese characters on the poster. When the audiences see this poster, they would recognize the roles for the characters, whether they are good or evil character. The tone helps show the scale of the character with more emphases.
        On A Primer of Visual Literacy, Dondis states that “Color has stronger affinity to the emotions" (p.50). The color helps illustrate the emotion of the overall image. The features and the black and grey color on Godzilla signify the destructive powerful monster. The light colors on the couple are emphasizes to display the couple is the protagonist of the story and this attracts attention to the audiences. The couple shows direction of the basic element of design. The couple is looking directly at Godzilla and their body language shows they are terrified of Godzilla. With color and tone, the poster image helps attract the audience and tells a story of the movie.