CONTROL on VHS:
Reimagining a Video Game as 80s VHS Packaging
Reimagining a Video Game as 80s VHS Packaging
I've found there's something distinctly unique about packaging design for films in the 1980s. Years after seeing some film tapes for rent or sale in Blockbusters and HMV, the designs I saw have lived in my memory.
I wanted to do my own take on recontextualising some of my favourite video games as films released on tape in the 1980s and 90s, starting with one of my all-time favourite titles; Control by Remedy Entertainment.
I wanted to do my own take on recontextualising some of my favourite video games as films released on tape in the 1980s and 90s, starting with one of my all-time favourite titles; Control by Remedy Entertainment.
I looked through several archival websites for VHS films, studying them to nail down the common characteristics to all the designs that resonated with me.
I noted high contrast, colourful and dramatic compositions, crushed blacks and film grain in photographs, with harsh cutouts on portraits of characters.
I was inspired by the title design for the film, House (1986), for my redesign of the Control logo.
To avoid creating an anachronistic blend of current day logos with the 80s aesthetic, I went the extra step of trying to reimagine what the logos used on the official packaging could look like if they existed in the same time period.
Most of the logos used in VHS packaging I could find online, but a couple seemed to not exist in an easily accessible digital form, so I remade them as vectors as they appeared in the photographs I was referencing.
