Poster design for my short film.

• need some margin all around the corners.. the top text "whistling woods.." is uncomfortably touching the top corner- add some space.

  • use a better typography - you have the same size font for all the text except the name of film- even the name could go a bit bigger and font size should vary based on the prominence. you should be able to read the name of the film from far behind. you can even move some text down below with the big image.

  • i am not sure about any color combination presented here- since you are showing past and present- i think the childhood image color tone on the very last option works fine- just that the present image is not treated well.. again, i imagine some text with your bottom image.

• google to see some poster samples on the web- that will give you some good idea..

I like the imagery from Jagjeet5 the best. The purple haze effect that you have in the lower picture seems to get the "illusion" aspect you mentioned, and the dark purple images in the middle reflect the "something wrong" part better than the other versions. However, I would suggest trying flipping the word content with the bottom image. Use the large face image as the main focal point. It has a very powerful composition.

Then, more importantly, work on your contrast. The bright purple of the image contrasts extremely well with the deep plum of the 3 images. I would mimic the texture/color of the face image as the background for your text. I would probably lower the saturation and lightness of the middle a little as well. The words do not provide much contrast from the background either, and this will only be more emphasized in printing.

Lastly, you need some better typography. The credits lines are very difficult to read, and aside from the title, every bit of text has the same weight and focus.

I uploaded a sample of what I'm talking about. The typography and background quality is just a quick change, it's still not very good, but hopefully it helps you.