Process: RICHARD III

For Criterion's release of Laurence Olivier's RICHARD III, I designed the package around an incredible Janus Films poster originally designed by Lee Reedy. In these DVD menus, as well as throughout the package, I tried to respectfully adapt Reedy's illustrations and supplement some of my own to create a visual theme for the release. (Click to enlarge)

The trickiest part, however, was in carrying through the lettering style used on the original poster. After consulting with some colleagues who knew more than I did about Roman and Gothic calligraphy, I realized that the title treatment was a custom job and I couldn't easily replicate it with a font. So I set about to teach myself the basic ropes of calligraphy and then replicate the lettering style of the title treatment to create headings for the rest of the package. It was painstaking, but hopefully worth it. 

The Avant Garde typeface used in the billing was too good not to carry through, bringing a touch of modernity to a classic, folky, almost medieval design. It's always a pleasure and a humbling challenge to carry through someone else's work and create a package that holds it up with admiration. The new restoration of RICHARD III is out now on Criterion DVD and Blu-ray.