What’s worse than a silly designer cliche? One that is mass marketed and sold for a profit to the unwitting masses.
There is a trend that when a designer wants to display a poster, instead of hanging it on a boring old wall, they setup their tripod and a time and take the photo holding their poster. The more interesting way you can hold the poster, the better.
The internet is a-wash with these photos each with a duplicated presentation idea that at one point was original. Each photo is a little different and presumably features the piece of design along with the designer. They are setup, perhaps considered, an add a little interest to you poster photos.
This trend has reached a level of popularity which has caused it to transform into something entirely different. It has actually turned in to a product, a commodity for some.
Arsenal, “Professional Design Weaponry” is now selling “Photorealistic Poster Presentation Templates.” These $35 files are PSDs presumably that allow you to paste your designs right onto them and have your cliche poster photo in moments, without the use of a camera or actually printing your poster.
Some young professional is dressed up behind your poster holding it in a variety of ways for “easily adjustable width” and “optional folding effects.”
Beyond the absurdity of having some random hand model holding up your poster, this file will probably be bought hundreds of times and used on thousands of “posters” sad to say. Photoshop can do some pretty amazing things but faking a display of a nice printed piece for convenience is not one of it’s best tricks.
The site goes on to try and sell you a bunch of photorealistic t-shirt (wrinkled and unwrinkled) for $35 for you to plop your design on to. This trend in packaging design elements is not new of course. Vectors have been bought and sold and dropped in place since MSword but faking a final presentation photograph is a step further in my eyes.
The presentation of your work is almost as important as the creation of it. That’s the point of the people on Arsenal as well: “buy our presentation packages for your projects that you probably won’t get completed because your presentation wouldn’t be very good if you tried to do it.”
Designers should take pride in every aspect of their design, from it’s inception to it’s final presentation and every aspect in between. This strange pre-packaged solution is something i would caution designers against using out of respect for their fellow designers and for their own design’s sake.
Poster Cliche Turned Product?
Have you ever used some form of pre-packaged design like this? Do you think it’s wrong for this type of thing to be bought and then used by designers? Is it no big deal or does it spell trouble for design’s future?
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Great post. I can’t see myself ever buying a product like that unless the client insisted on it… in which case I would be inclined to pick up my 30D and go shoot a real one.
Great blog btw – discovered you today while searching for a browser tester service. Keep it up!
as always, impressed with the blog posts. extremely informative and thoughtful, impressed that there is someone so dedicated to informing others and lending resources in my own gd department.
i was just thinking how corny that is, and how horrifying it is when someone who has hairy arms and hands holding their poster in this way. very trendy, you’re right. definitely have to blame the hipsters for this one.