EunmiJung325

Detailed or Simple review: detailed
Message/Purpose of Graphic: this poster is for my light angst fanfiction
Your concerns, if any: just point out what I'm lacking~
 

FIRST GLANCE/IMPRESSION
 
When you said light angst, I didn't know the lights were literal. Unless the story has something to do with city night lights or if that's how you see your story, then it would be proper to use them. What bothers me the most are the characters because they looks like vectors you've stuck onto the graphic or you haven't paid enough mind to erase the edges around them. Though, I'm going with erasing because there's a lot of pointed edges and that disrupts the flow of the character blending well into the background. Some ways to adjust this is by simply erasing carefully around the edges, create a mask vector using the pen tool, changing the brightness, cover it with another image and cutting it out using the lasso tool. There are probably more ways to do it, but I think the most easiest would be to erase the edges and clean it up a bit more so the bits from the original stock image doesn't show. 

You have a good focus point, which is generally the middle in an up and downward scenario. Though, my eyes are heavily conflicted on which character to look at because the girl is facing the audience, yet her photo is relatively smaller in comparison to the guy, who is asking for a lot of attention for being at the front and slightly larger. I can understand that they're both the main characters, but you should be careful on who you give emphasis on and if it coordinates with your story. Otherwise, the flow of the graphic becomes easily disrupted and the minors things become more obvious.

MOOD AND THEMES
 
Light angst is a tough genre to portray because it's not completely angst and it's not something else other than angst in the story. Most of the time, the plot of the story should be able to portray this area and if love is not a large factor, then it doesn't not have to look like it's from a romance novel, so on and so forth. It's a pretty vague theme to me, but it allows the designer to try to be creative and at the same time makes it so much harder to have a concrete focus on the poster. So mood-wise, this looks like it could be angst because of the girl's expression. I can't figure out anything for the guy or if it could be relatively significant so I'm assuming his 'feelings' are more or less, not the most important in the story. 

  
COLOR HARMONY
 
I think you have done this area pretty well. It has light and vintage colors, and they're not entirely bright and happy, which is how it should be to reflect the story. So I would say they are suitable aside from the things that would need to be edited in order to let the colors run smoothly. 

STOCK USES

As I've suggested earlier, the outer edges of each character needs to be clean a bit more so they don't pop out too much in the graphic. Also, so they may run smoother since the edges from the original photos can distract the viewers, and it would blend more with the background. This applies to both and I think the brightness for each character should be adjusted. You can go under the tab Image>adjustment>brightness and contrast or levels or curves or exposure. Any of those can change the brightness on the photo and you can see which one you like to use best by experimenting. It varies by person to person and your level of editing, but I find the easiest and simplest is the brightness and contrast. You might even end up using all of them, but that's entire up to you once you experiment. 

Also, the girl's photo is a bit blurred compared to the guy. If you can sharpen her photo a bit more by going under the 'filters' tab, you can add additional adjustments the photo. 

On the guy, I've mentioned about the edges looking sharp and not cleaned enough. You can also edit this by using softer brushes to clean the edges. You're not limited to just using a sharp clean cut brush (if that's what you have been doing the entire time). 

There is a bubble texture placed all over the graphic and I'm guessing you just pasted it onto the poster and left it since it's overlapping with the girl's photo. I'd say limit it to the background or on other places that would allow the characters to be placed smoothly onto the graphic. That way, it wouldn't look so awkward. 

  
TYPOGRAPHY

The title is clear, simple, and very dramatic with the bold words. Which is good if you want to imply some tense moments and the fact that you have movie credits on the bottom. I'm assuming it's a movie theme you're going for. It's not bad in that sense and with the background, it does look like you went in the right direction. Just the quote bothers me more than the title because it's in a scribbled handwriting and that really takes out the dramatic dynamics in the poster. I can no longer take the angst seriously and with the pictures and other typefaces on the bottom, it looks out of place. Usually, it is best to stick to less than three different typefaces or at least different typefaces that looks similar. The only time I'd recommend using three or more different typefaces is when it goes with the concept that is anything but a serious type of scenario, which is in this case, angst. The title and the credits look similar and is why I think they made the 'movie' concept work instead of the quote, the one with a completely different typeface style. So I'd suggest changing the typeface for the quote so it matches the credits and the title of the poster. 

Also, I don't think you need to add extra credits above the poster. You already have them on the bottom and just adding them on top is like duplicating the content. So I'd say remove the one on top unless you would rather remove the movie credits. 
  

SKILLS AND TECHNIQUES
 
I notice there is a texture overlapping her face and I'd recommend removing it from her face because of the distraction it causes. Especially when someone is looking at her, you'll see it right over her face instantly. It may have been able to blend with the overall appearance of the graphic, but because she hasn't been edited in a way where she doesn't pop out too much, I think it's best just to clean it off her face. Also, it doesn't look like you have made it in anyway connected to her or allow the enchantments to weave it into the background. It would probably work better after you have edit the girl's photo.

There is a very small piece of something blowing in the air next the girl on the left side of the graphic. It looks out of place because it's a light color on a dark colorbackground and I'm guessing it's something that was forgotten or didn't get erased.  

 
OVERALL 

It's a fairly good poster, but I think you need to keep an eye on the minor details and play around with some of the adjustments and filters. Try experimenting a bit more and see what you like.
 
I hope this review was helpful. :)