Movie Posters
Sophie’s World
by Jostein Gaarder
Project
A movie poster concept for Sophie's World, a novel by Jostein Gaarder — subtitled A Novel About the History of Philosophy. I first read it at fourteen after my father took me to the Frankfurt Buchmesse, and I've come back to it several times since. It was the first book I chose when given the chance to design a poster for a personal favorite book.
The story follows Sophie, a young girl who becomes the student of a mysterious philosopher who leads her through the history of human thought — from Socrates to Sartre. As she goes deeper, she begins to question her own existence, eventually discovering that she and her entire world are characters in a book being written for someone else's daughter. What follows is Sophie's attempt to break free from the story and experience the world as real. It's a book about awakening — the kind that stays with you.
Creating a Professional Looking Poster
The poster is built from multiple layered images composited in Photoshop. The background is a starfield that sets the cosmic, philosophical tone. Over that, several distinct elements are blended together — Greek/Roman columns, the Colosseum, ancient ruins, and the Sphinx — each representing a different era of philosophical history that Sophie moves through in the book. A statue of Socrates is composited centrally and made semi-transparent, blending into the architecture around it using layer masks and adjusted opacity to create a ghosted, timeless quality.
In the lower half, a forest path with a lone figure — Sophie — is composited into the scene, grounded by an open book that anchors the entire composition. The book was blended into the base using layer masks to make it feel like it emerges from the scene rather than sitting on top of it.
The title treatment required extra attention. The gold beveled letterforms on "SOPHIE'S WORLD" needed to feel monumental without competing with the layered imagery behind them. A full film credit block was created beneath — including cast, crew, studio logos, rating, and tagline — to complete the professional movie poster illusion.
Hierarchy was a central challenge throughout. With so many visually rich elements, controlling where the eye moves required careful management of opacity, contrast, and placement at every layer.
Eyes of the Cosmos
Every Galaxy has a Guardian
Project
An original science fiction movie poster concept — including the title, tagline, and full story synopsis written as part of the project.
The movie is titled, Eyes of the Cosmos.
In the year 2099, humanity is on the brink of extinction. When the fate of our species hangs in the balance, Dr. Marcus Brass, a daring explorer and brilliant scientist stumbles upon an incredible discovery that could change everything.
He uncovers a technology and is able to harness its power to communicate with an alien being, who is sworn to safeguard the evolutionary progress of species facing extinction. With the clock ticking down on humanity, he must embark on a perilous quest to unlock the secrets of the Guardians and call upon them to save humanity.
Embark on a thrilling journey through space and time, as Guardians of the Cosmos takes you to the edge of the unknown, exploring the very fabric of human existence. With stunning visuals, gripping storytelling, and a profound message about the resilience of life, this is a science fiction epic that will leave audiences breathless and pondering the mysteries of the universe.
Creating a professional looking poster
I used a lot of layer masks to create a poster. It was instrumental in blending other images into my background. The ability to add and subtract parts of the images without permanently removing areas is great because you can go back and forth refining the selection. You can even decide how much of the image you want to add into the scene which helped the blending of images appear seamless and more natural. I think it’s this ability of blending images into the scene that help create a professional end result.
Challenges
I was mostly worried about creating a good hierarchy for the viewer. I used a lot of eye-catching images I thought. I wanted to make sure they didn’t compete with each other too much. I did my best to avoid that. I also took a while placing the copy on the poster. I really liked the background image and didn’t want to cover up much of it. I used white for most of the copy for contrast but in some areas the copy was getting lost. I had to adjust the placement several times to ensure readability. The Title was originally white, but it was throwing off the balance of this composition. I decided to place a copy on top of the white pulling from the background colors. I used different weights and sizes to help move the viewers eyes thought the poster.
Image Credits
All original images (photographs and AI generated) were selected from the adobe stock website and modified to create this final poster.
For the background image I used an AI generated image licenced through adobe. I loved the colors and it worked well with other elements I needed to incorporate.
The Photos of the Planets were added to the background. I blended those in using layer masks. I also adjusted opacity when blending some areas.
For the right eye I added 2 spaceships each on its own layer and created a layer mask to remove their background.
For the left eye I brought in the image of the main character and created a clipping mask which I blended into the eye. I had to use generative fill to remove the extra digest the AI generated character had. I also added some glow on the sphere using screen mode and finally added some highlights to the characters face.
Fonts
I settled on Acumin Pro and Extra condensed for most of the copy.
For the title and the subtitle I wanted to use something more futuristic I found Omnium worked well.