Quick Overview:

I designed both the film’s poster and an in-world dating app UI. We leaned into a clean, Apple-inspired interface to highlight the tension between modern dating’s promise of connection and its isolating reality. The poster reflects this contrast; using bright dating-app colors, an overload of emojis, and a glowing phone that dominates the frame.

All assets were created in Illustrator without AI (So old school. So 2018).

‍

[Fri May 23 09:53]

I did these graphics on the plane coming to and from New York; there were two children behind me, one who was kicking my seat, and I was hoping I wouldn't have to explain to the parents as to why "Write & Tight" is sending messages to "Lumberjackin", "Discreet Daddy", and of course "Ballz is Life".

For DTF?, I was asked by Jess McLeod and Sam Krochmal to design the film's poster and custom in-world dating app. We wanted to honour the humour in the writing but it was important to convey the undercurrent of isolation and emotional dissonance that is at the heart of this story (and the story, by the way, is about a gay man's journey in the world of online dating).

We ended up going with a UI inspired by Apple to reflect how dating apps often use clean, addictive UX to pull users in. I thought this contrast, going with a more "here and now" dystopian feel, would quietly highlight the protagonist's feeling of isolation; the audience can resonate with that modern but broken promise of love.

Side note: I find myself wanting to unpack modern UI more and more. How many hours a day do we spend staring at our screens? What are the aesthetics involved that make it so hard to turn away? It reminds me of human construction in nature, like an electrical box in the middle of a national forest, but now we have these digital constructs popping up in our psychology. What could be inner peace within the mind is easily disrupted by the electrical; notifications or reels.

ANYWAYS. I brought this persective and philosophical lens to the design.

For the poster, we wanted to mirror the film's tone while maintaining the thoughts stated above. We used the colour palette of a popular dating app and kept it bright, but also balanced this with an overwhelming flurry of emojis (especially hearts), the hero hiding behind his desire for sex (DTF?), and a phone that dominates the frame (which lights the scene, so to speak).