Right from the start, I wanted to create some sort of fictional flyer. Real life events tend to have more basic looks to them (especially more communal ones) and that bored me. So, I thought about what fun, fictional events I could do. I had a few ideas from a Quidditch flyer to something a little more realistic, but then I remembered an important parade from Star Wars: Rebels celebrated on an important day in Star Wars lore called Empire Day. This was the day that Emperor Palpatine took full control of the Senate and overthrew the Galactic Republic, turning it into the Galactic Empire. In the show, this parade happens in the Capital City on Lothal (quite literally called Capital City). I thought this would be a really fun thing to make a flyer of, not just because of the fiction and increased creative control of it, but also because, it being a flyer for the Empire, would need to include some forms of propaganda. This might almost give it a subtle narrative element.
Originally I had this being on a black background to contrast much of the Imperial white used in Star Wars design. However, I then proceeded to look up the in-universe Imperial propaganda posters that have been created and noticed them generally being more colorful, though simplistic, specifically with a large use of red and black. I then attempted to find a background that fit this, but that also combined those propaganda and, especially, fear elements that are often front and center. This is my favorite part of the entire poster design because it makes the rest of it, and even just the poster itself really pops with the Death Star looming over the entire thing as this omniscient presence. Aside from that, I found a very fitting poster of Palpatine to use as well as an image of Lothal’s Capital City that had Star Destroyers coming into frame above, both of which really matched the general mood and idea of the event and ideas the Empire might want to portray. I tried to follow this design language through the rest of the flyer as well with a lot of very bold and intimidating text and words highlighting the amazement of the Empire.
The one thing I’m not super happy about looking back on it is fairly minor, but I think important with the rest of the effort I put in, which is the lack of continuity it actually has with the Star Wars mythos. A lot of what I put is kind of arbitrary numbers. For instance 21 BBY refers to 21 years before the Battle of Yavin [IV], or the battle in A New Hope. In canon, however, this is not an event the Empire would know of at that point and so would’ve used a different form of measurement in terms of years that I did not know. Even if they didn’t, 21 doesn’t make sense as a year to have a parade since Lothal didn’t have full imperial occupation at that point (21 BBY would only be 3 years after Senate takeover). Minor details like that would've made the flyer truly make sense and work in the context of who it would be for.
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