Would this image work for a marquee?

[spauldingd]

My cab will have a "Wargames" movie theme.  I spent some time playing with Adobe Illustrator and a few other programs to essentially cut-n-paste this together.  Would this sort of thing look presentable as a marquee?  I don't want to embarass myself by sending this off for printing when it will look like crap.

The Illustrator file is 10MB with a resolution of 2495x723, so I will scale it down to view here.  What do you think?

[SNAAAKE]

Look like pure crap to me,doesnt arcade cabinets need some arcade related theme or somethin

[mahuti]

Very constructive

A few problems I see.

1. Your use of type is weak. The font is thin, plain, and not dynamic. Take a look at the art from other marquees... font selection & use of type is very important. Here it looks like an after thought. Many plain fonts would look great against this backdrop without alteration. Helvetic / Arial blown up "saturday-sale" style doesn't.

2. If you are going to use an acronym, use something that sounds phonetically interesting (basically your cabinet is now called wopper 2.0 -- that doesn't sound exciting)  Why not just call the cabinet "Wargames" and don't tell anybody about its connection to the movie. The movie is so old few people will make a strong enough connection to see you blattently stealing the name & subject matter (remember, good artists borrow, great artists steal.) It's good stuff, so is the name. Wopper 2.0 isn't.

3. I would remove the "tic-tac-toe" screen. Taken out of the context of the movie (which MANY peole will not remember), it makes no sense, except in the hokey tic-tac-toe sense.

From a visual perspective, I think the backdrop art looks good. As far as printing goes... if you started with low-res art for the background screens, it won't print well, even if it has been blown up to 'at-size' 300 dpi. You have to count on the original size of your art to set the quality. If your screengrabs started at a decent quality, and you maintained that level of quality all the way through, your printing will be good.

I think what you have is a good start. Steal some concepts from other marquees you like, and blatantly repurpose them for your own ends on this one.

[Hellfromabove]

Sorry man I gotta agree with my homie SNAAAKE, I'm just not feelin it . Thanx.

-See Ya!!!

[Nailz]

I'd say listen to what mahuti has to say, he definitely knows what he is talking about and provides some obviously constuctive comments.

As for snack, do on search on some of the absolute tripe he has produced, and then you won't feel so bad....

[Chemixtry]

I agree with the commnets from mahuti. The marquee is way to busy. Why not go with the wargames titles and cut the screenshots down to just a few? If you include the pictures of the map with the missle strikes it will make sense to people who might night connect it to the movie.

[spauldingd]

Thanks for the comments, most of them anyway!  The reason for the font selection was an attempt to match the font used on the original computer in the movie.  I thought of using WARGAMES as the name, but for some reason that just doesn't do it for me.

Getting hi-res screen shots is a problem.  I gathered the best I could find online and some were good DVD captures, but I don't have a good way of gathering them myself.  I wanted to mimic the multiple screen control center of NORAD from the movie.  This is definatley a draft copy, but I just don't know if I have the artistic talent to produce something good, but I don't want one of those generic blue lightning MAME marquees either.  I think buying a marquee from one of my favorite games (Joust or Star Castle) would be out-of-place.

Luckily I am much further along getting my cab ready.  Computer is done, MameWAH is good, coin-door refurbished and functional, etc.

Thanks,
Dave

p.s.  The movie isn't old!  I am!

[Grasshopper]

I think it's got potential.

I agree with (most of!) the other comments. Get rid of the noughts and crosses screen and just call it Wargames. I don't really see a problem if people remember the movie and make the connection.

It's definitely an appropriate theme for an arcade cab. If I remember correctly the movie actually starts with Matthew Broderick playing a video game in an arcade. Not a great film but not a bad film either.

Perhaps you could have an image of the earth from space in the background behind the screens.

[Felsir]

I also agree with Mahuti. The cab's name should stand out.
My advise for the background: take 3 of the best images (for example, US missile strikes, Europe missile strikes and Alaskan defence zone) make them the same size and divide them equally over the available space.
The images you used now are all of different sizes and with the white borders it looks a little cluttered and randomly thrown together.
The theme you picked is great, use it to the full effect! :-)

[Magnet_Eye]

I think you should try and use one image, like the grid ones with the territories and nukes... have it fill the whole marquee, then place your text over that. maybe with a glow or something to elevate it over the image.

Get my feeling?

There's a WarGames video game out with some decent graphics...you could do something similar....

maybe something like this.....

[Magnet_Eye]

Or with your text...

 

[Nannuu]

You may want to  try something like Magnet_Eye's idea there and use your monitor screens around the bezel.  

[DougHillman]

FWIW, the Wargames DVD is available for less than $15.00 at www.amazon.com, possibly even cheaper at a local Best Buy or something.

You can grab your own hi-res screen shots suitable for printing if you've got a DVD drive in your computer, or know someone who does.

D

[mahuti]

They still won't be high-res. Just higher than what he has now.

[Nannuu]

I have the DVD, I can get the screen grabs if you need them.