Tuesday 2 July 2013

July's TOS retro prints

With the start of another month comes the latest quartet of TOS retro prints from Juan Ortiz. MTV Geek and Entertainment Weekly have together previewed this month's designs, UPDATE: StarTrek.com has now posted the whole set (sans watermarks), with their usual commentary from Juan Ortiz. This month's collection features Orions, pulp fiction, and funky Zetarians:

Whom Gods Destroy

Ortiz had to do this one twice, I think he landed on something really good though, so worth all the work:
This was actually the second design. The first had photos of Yvonne Craig and William Shatner in a Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!-inspired poster. CBS did not have the rights to Yvonne's likeness, so I had to rework it from scratch. Maybe someday the original can be shown.
To avoid any conflict, I went instead with a James Bond-inspired poster. I'm happy with the way it turned out and I don't miss the original concept at all.

The Lights of Zetar
It wasn't until I got to the last scene of the episode that I was able to form an idea for this poster. Once I had it, I had to make sure that the colors didn't mimic my "Trouble with Tribbles" poster. The idea for a spotlight effect derived from it looking a bit flat. The spotlight and the tiny Enterprise above helps add some depth to it.

Tomorrow is Yesterday
It didn't start out as a magazine cover, but the design led me in that direction. It was fun to imagine myself back in 1967 designing a magazine cover with the term Trekkies on it. Trekkies were new back then, so it was nice to finally include them in this poster set. Originally, the blurb on the bottom read, "Are The Beatles Time Travelers?" It may have been a copyright issue, so we went instead with the moon-landing question.

The Devil in the Dark
I always try to design a poster with a new viewer in mind. Elements from the episode are there, and they're just placed into a design that gives an expression of space rather than being underground.
For the sake of those that had never seen the episode, I did not want to show the Horta on the poster. As I re-watched "The Devil in the Dark," the smoldering imprint of a man left on the ground made for a powerful image. It's reminiscent of the "shadows" left behind by the bombs dropped on Japan.

The poster set should be available to order soon,while Entertainment Earth and Mighty Fine have already got listings up for the glasses and T-shirt versions of these designs. You can see those after the jump, as well as news of a Mighty Fine Star Trek design competition:

Here's the Bif Bang Pow! glasses set for this month:


And here are the four T-shirts from Mighty Fine. As ever they give a slightly expanded version of each design:

 


Now, could you be the next Juan Ortiz? Mighty Fine have launched their second Star Trek T-shirt design competition. You've got a month to get your designs in, which can use anything from the prime universe. Find the full details, here.



3 comments:

Unknown said...

I think this is the first set of these that I've liked all four prints enough to actually consider buying them. Helps that Devil in the Dark is my favorite TOS episode, and...I'll admit it, I have a thing for the ladies in green...lol

Unknown said...

Too bad they couldn't use Craig's likeness. Guess that confirms Mattel won't be able to make a figure of her as Batgirl.

That said I think the design they went with looks great. Will definitely get the poster set when it's released. I would get the glasses, but I would be in constant fear of breaking them, or ruining the design on them, so they'd most likely just sit with the rest of my Star Trek collection. Might get a shirt or two though.

I'm also definitely going to enter that t-shirt contest. My major was technically Video Production, but I had quite a few design classes. Including two rather intensive one's on just using Illustrator. Don't think I'll win, as I've never won something like this, but it's still worth a try. Will also be fun to try and come up with ideas.

8of5 said...

Good luck in the competition. I'm tempted myself, although so far am failing to find a nice idea.

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