Jiayi Zhao

Joshua Smith

Writing 2

March 520, 2020

Self-Reflective Essay

People argue that the purpose of film posters is not to create a piece of art but to sell more

tickets. That explains why today many film poster designers choose the low-risk option of

featuring actors, because it easily gets people interested by showing the actors’ attractive looks,

and the popularity of famous actors is a powerful tool of advertising. However, a good film

poster brings great commercial values as well as artistic ones. Some illustrated film posters use

icons and abstract metaphors to offer artistic interpretations of the movies’ central ideas, and

artistic choices are fun to think about and reflect on. Having strong passions for visual arts,

especially illustrations by drawing, I decided to translate an academic article in economics into

illustrated film posters. Designs, colors, and fonts are essential elements utilized by film poster

designers to make an appeal to the viewers; using imagery and metaphors is another strategy that

allows the designer to creatively present the movie’s central theme. Through film posters,

designers give artistic interpretations of movies. Passionate about visual arts and movies, I

decided to make a film poster to translate the genre of academic articles in Economics.

To perform this translation, I needed to first recognize what has changed from academic

articles to film posters in their rhetorical situations. A rhetorical situation includes four major

components: subject, audience, composer, and context.1 In translatingThrough the process of

translation, the subject remains the same, yet the other three components have changed to a great

extent. While the audience of academic articles is fellow scholars, the audience of film posters is

1 National Council of Teachers of English, Rhetorical Situation Handout, 2011.

customers who are deciding which movie they should see. FurtherFurthermore, economic

articles are written by economists who wish to make a contribution to the field, and film posters

are made by designers to make an impact of the story. With the new audience and context in

mind, I would be able to explore further about genre conventions of film posters and make

appropriate choices to reproduce those conventions.

To start, film posters have the principle of using an image to present a central idea of that

movie. That is, by looking at the image, the audience is able to get a sense of what story that

movie is about. Therefore, my first step in designing the poster is to recognize the theme. The

main focus of my article is the consumption of luxury fashion brands in China, and the article

examines what values influence Chinese consumers’ willingness to buyto communicate findings

within the academic community of Economics; the goal is to convince the audience to accept the

composer’s claims to knowledge. Film posters, by contrast, use an image to present the central

ideas of films, made by designers to attract potential ticket-buyers. By understanding these

differences in audience, contexts and purposes, I would be able to take a further step to explore

the genre conventions of film posters and make appropriate choices to reproduce those

conventions.

As analyzed above, the two genres’ subjects remain the same through translation. In the

genre of academic articles, the subject is found as the main topic of research questions, while in

the genre of film posters, it is called theme or central ideas. Therefore, by identifying the main

focus of the academic article, I would know what central ideas I needed to convey through

depicting images. The academic article I chose examines a question about values that influence

consumers’ willingness to buy luxury fashion brands, and the researchers have taken an
empirical approach in the cultural context of China.2 To integrate that concept into my posters, I

made several fundamental choices in colors, designs, and fonts. First, I chose to use no colors

except gold, which symbolizes wealth, exclusivity and power, to emphasize the concept of

consuming luxury goods. Furthermore, I planned to draw many actual products from top luxury

fashion brands, such as Gucci, Chanel and LV, to add more visual effects. I also used the word

“luxury” explicitly as the movie title, and put it in big and bold classic font to reflect the mood of

the movie.

In reality, production teams hire experts and find the most appropriate artistic style to

correspond to the theme of their movies. In this project, however, my preferred style of drawing

detailed, character-based illustrations was not employed entirely for that reason, but due to the

fact that I had limited working time and access to painting materialsAt this point, it became clear

the theme of my posters would be the consumption of luxury fashion brands.

With the central theme in mind, I could move to themoved to my next step, which was to

design thedecide what specific contents I would be drawing. In the article, the results showI

approached this question by looking further at the result findings of this article, in which the

researchers conclude that “fashion lifestyle,” “perceived social/emotional value,” “utilitarian

value,” and “economic value” have significant influences on consumers’ willingness to buy

luxury fashion brands. What grabbed my attention, however, was the approachmethod used by

the researchers to understand the different effects of consumers’how these values have different

effects on consumers according to their past genuine and counterfeit purchasing experiences. The

researchers categorized their subjectivessubjects into four groups: consumers who only buy

genuine, consumers who only buy counterfeit, consumers who buy both genuine and counterfeit,

2 Guoxin Li, et al., Luxury Fashion Brand Consumers In China: Perceived Value, Fashion Lifestyle, And
Willingness To Pay, 2011.
and consumers who buy neither genuine or counterfeit. By building models and collecting

empirical data on each group, the researchers drew different conclusions on each group. For only

genuine consumers, “perceived social/emotional values” and “utilitarian values” most influence

their willingness to buy luxury fashion brands. For only counterfeit consumers, “brand prestige

lifestyle” along with its interaction between “perceived social/emotional values” are shown to

have more effects. While consumers who buy neither genuine or counterfeit consider “economic

values” as most important, consumers who buy both are drawn with no significant conclusions.

These interesting conclusions guided me to the idea of creating four characters

representative of each group. To better integrate my understanding and reproduce the convention

of film posters, I decided to make two pieces of posters, one featuring the characters while

displaying a luxury fashion lifestyleThis way, I could incorporate those findings as well as my

own interpretations into the poster by featuring each character differently. I then decided to make

two pieces of posters: while one features the four characters plainly by presenting them stand in a

row, the other usingone uses a metaphorical approach to incorporate my interpretations of the

study results.

The resultsby presenting the characters interacting with each other in a way that creates

tension.

My original intention for creating two posters was to fully demonstrate my understanding

as well as reproduce the conventions of film posters. However, I failed to make a balance

between my designed workload and the time given. Re-thinking about the two designs of posters

at a point where I had finished this project, only doing the second one might be a better choice,

as it contains both the convention of featuring actors and the creative approach of using

metaphors.
 Because the results have implied some aspects of consumers’ psychological motivations

for buying luxury fashion brands, and I tried to reflect those in my first poster by making careful

choices of the characters’ outfit styles, hairstyles, facial expressions, and body postures.34 These

details serve to reveal some of the characters’ lifestyles and personalities, although they are more

or less stereotypical. For example, the second character from the left, who represents the group

of consumers who buy neither genuine or counterfeit luxury fashion brands, wears a strappy top

and jeans, with a ponytail and beverage in hand. These elements contributed to a more casual and

lively temperament, while indicating her indifferent attitude toward prestige lifestyles. At the

same time, I have drawn the other three characters’ outfits with the actual products from top

luxury fashion brands, such as Gucci, Chanel and LV, although some of them are counterfeit

products, which were indicated by the price markers.

A distinguishing feature of film posters is that they contain important textual information

about the movies, including the titles, name credits (of actors, directors, producers, etc.), release

dates, and sometimes taglines. To reproduce those conventions using information from the

academic article, I first chose to use the word “luxury” explicitly as the movie title. Then I used

the article’s authors’ names as those of directors, and the date the article became available online

as the release date with the phrase “coming soon.”

To further integrate the theme of luxury fashion brands into the poster, I also took the

strategy of choosing appropriate colors and fonts. For colors, I used only the color of gold, which

symbolizes wealth, exclusivity, and power. The visual effect that gold immediately stands out on

the poster helps fulfill its goal of grabbing the viewer’s attention, while also reinforcing the

concept of the consumption of luxury goods. Then I chose to put all the texts on the poster in the
3 My work and time input would be appreciated if the audience can observe each character carefully, examining the
subtle differences between their outlooks, although the real film posters audience will not do that.
4 From left to right, each character represents: only buy genuine, buy neither genuine or counterfeit, buy both
genuine and counterfeit, and only buy counterfeit.
Times New Roman font, which is a simple yet classic and elegant font consistent with the mood

of the poster.5

In the other poster using the metaphorical approach, I drew the character who buys both

genuine and counterfeit luxury fashion brands looking down at a building. The building is

composed of store display windows of top luxury fashion brands, and the other three characters

are inside the building, shopping or sitting.

Adding powerful visual effects, the variety of display windows are drawn to explore the

conceptualization of consuming luxury goods, which was discussed in the article as the

“conspicuous consumption.” The immaculate presentation of store display windows is a

distinguishablesignificant characteristic of luxury fashion brands, because it represents the high

levels of social values of consumers with conspicuous consumption.

Therefore, by placing characters inside and outside the building, I aimed to indicate their

perceived values in relation to the symbolic values of luxury fashion brands. For example, I

made the character who buysrepresents buying both genuine and counterfeit outside the building,

as I was inspired by the interesting result that it is the only group of consumers who were

foundfinding that they are the only group found with no significant conclusions. The other three

characters, by contrast, have different perceived values limited to their socioeconomic contexts.

Meanwhile, the contrast in sizes between the characters also added to the effect of creating

tension among the characters while suggesting the dominant position of the character in the

bigger size.

Furthermore, since the study was done in the context of China, I created another version

of the title on the otherthis poster, which is a translation of “luxury” in Chinese. These Chinese
5 In reality, production teams hire experts and find the most appropriate artistic style to correspond to the theme of
their movies. In this project, however, my preferred drawing style of detailed, character-based illustrations was not
employed entirely for that reason, but due to the fact that I had limited working time and access to painting
materials.
characters helped to emphasize the specific cultural context, while the foreign language added

more exotic visual effects.

Except for the image, film posters include some textual information, including the name

credits (e.g. actors, directors, producers, etc.), the release dates, and sometimes taglines. To

reproduce these conventions, I used the article’s authors’ names as those of directors, and the

date the article became available online as the release date, with the phrase “coming soon.”

Overall, performing this translation required a strong skill of metacognition.6 That is, I

needed to constantly reflect on my artistic choices, discriminating which choice iswas necessary

for conveying the central idea of the article or, reflecting the tone of the poster, or fulfilling the

goal of attracting the audience, and which part has little purpose but making the image good-

looking. I also revised my sketches again and again while employing metaphorical

approachesthat employed metaphorical approaches again and again, because I needed to make

sure that I was presenting the right meaning through those implicit messagesmy ideas behind

those implicit messages would guide the audience to the appropriate interpretations. These

metacognitions ensured that I achieved clear and effective communication. At the same time, I

reflected upon my own knowledge and practices about drawing as well. For example, I needed to

consider the questions such as, what effects of my choice of using only pencils and drawing in a

detailed, character-based style to the overall mood of the posters? By thinkingThinking critically

about the choices I would otherwise unconsciously make, I would be able allowed me to expand

upon what I’ve learned about genres and rhetorical situations, and thus craft an effective genre

translation.

6 Metacognition is not Cognition.

Works Cited

Guoxin Li, et al.. Luxury Fashion Brand Consumers In China: Perceived Value, Fashion

Lifestyle, And Willingness To Pay. 2011.

Unknown. Metacognition is not Cognition.

National Council of Teachers of English. Rhetorical Situation Handout. 2011.