A Superhero Movie Parody Poster Project for Piramide Groep

I’ve been meaning to blog about this for a while, and I finally have some time to do so! I wanted to show you guys a poster project that Skye and I worked on earlier this year (sometime in April) upon the request of his cousin Aileen, who works in The Netherlands.

The poster was done to promote a charity event organised by her office, Piramide Groep. Basically, some of her colleagues signed up as cyclists to raise funds for their Kidney Foundation. Purely for charity, each of them were going to cycle 240km in one day. We were told by Aileen that these volunteer cyclists had never cycled 240km in a year, let alone in a day! It is heartening to know that these selfless volunteers were willing to put in so much time and effort for the sake of a good cause.

The funds collected from the event helped send a Dutch national team of athletes take part in the World Transplant Games.

Now, for the twist to the poster – Aileen had envisioned the design of the poster based on one theme – superhero movie parody.  See, the cyclists were actually pitting themselves against the forces of nature and challenging themselves for the sake of charity. As these are not your regular athletes, Aileen wanted to portray them as overweight versions of superheroes.

Right here in this tube, are copies of the A1-sized “movie” posters (yes, they are huge!) which Aileen sent us as keepsake. Did Skye and I manage to pull it off? ;) Read on to find out!

 So Aileen furnished us with the following:

• her design concept and notes,
• background starburst pattern,
• background map showing the cycling route,
• group photos of the volunteer cyclists, and
• logos of the company and the Kidney Foundation.

The rest was up to us to create! Skye and I brainstormed for hours.

We started by sketching the cartoon costumes, then cutting out and resizing the heads of the cyclists, matching them to the cartoon bodies, adding details to each costume. We tried to make each costume as unique as possible, but still kept to the red-and-blue colour theme (red for the Kidney Foundation, blue for the company). We also gave these heroes large bellies (to fulfil Aileen’s vision of the parody).

Several drafts and emails later, we had the final product! Notice that one of them was given a pair of angel’s wings, a couple of them were given shields, and one wore a cape. The cape idea came in because we did not have a front shot of him; therefore we made it look like he was facing the rest of the team.

Then came the finishing touches – placing the banner with the event details and the heroes’ names at the bottom of the poster.

The final printed version you see here is just very slightly different from the one we sent to Aileen because she made some minor changes.

Skye and I were so delighted to know that everyone was a good sport and that they loved the poster! The hours of labour were well worth it. :) We are so proud we managed to make this poster according to Aileen’s instructions and it was certainly fun and memorable for us.

So there, that’s our first “movie” poster project, and we are pleased it was done for a meaningful event. :) I would so do this again!

J 

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Tags: A1, Charity, Cyclists, Dutch, Kidney Foundation, Movie poster, Parody, Piramide Groep, Poster, Superheroes, The Netherlands, Thrills, Volunteers, World Transplant Games