“Minnesota Mean” Film Poster (Unofficial)

Concept:

This poster was created for a design class where we worked with a client to make potential posters for the then-unreleased documentary titled Minnesota Mean. The documentary follows the timeline of a professional all-female roller derby team as they face adversity and personal challenges over the course of the season. The idea of this poster was to capture the passion and strength of these women with bold type, intense colors, and uncompromising visuals.

Jobs:

Client Communication

Poster Ideation

Illustration

Layout and Typographic Composition

Editing

Process:

The first element I made was the eye illustration, which was an abstraction of an eye with make-up rather than a still from the film, as the still did not have the right resolution to be blown up to an entire poster. I leaned into this style and ended up with a composition reminiscent of 60s poster illustration style, which worked in my favor; I wanted to show heavy contrast in every aspect, creating a juxtaposition that shows the themes of the film. Sports documentaries are a classic genre, but not with all-female roller derby; rising to the top and winning is a classic trope, but this film shows a rise near the top that ultimately does not win. Several elements of the film flip classic tropes and motifs on their head, so that was what I wanted to do with the poster. 60’s illustration style, but with digital vector illustration; visually striking, but minimal; strong colors, but few and all solid.

Made using Adobe Illustrator.