Knight Banners

Alex Wong and Jason Piper KITT banners 

Wow, what to say about this project? I guess the best way to describe it was monumental in scale, especially for my computer. It all started with my good friend and KOTWC brother Alex Wong asking me to create a banner for him to display his amazing KITT at various events.

Not just any banner, but he wanted to showcase his KITT replica and also use images that showed scenes and characters/actors from Knight Rider so that people could understand (for those who didn't know) why KITT is so special.

I usually don't like to repeat myself with my designs and push my understanding of style in different directions with each project I take on so the first step was - research!

How do I manage to get all these elements to work without being too busy or boring? Well after a lot of scouring around, I liked the look of these glass-like angled slivers used in the dvd box art for Mission Impossible III.

That became my starting point on how to bring all these elements together in a visually interesting way. Then I did some other research on banners out there and eventually decided to make Alex's KITT the biggest element and then have the other pictures behind it in these shard like slivers while keeping "KITT from Knight Rider" in large print and a focal point that could be read across long distances.

Remember how I mentioned that when I design artwork, it's like creating a big jigsaw puzzle? Well this is a perfect example - only in this case I also had to create the pieces and figure out how they all went together!

I had to extensive work on Alex's main KITT just to make sure that it was on an interesting angle and wouldn't look pixelated at a larger format. I took a photo I had and made some adjustments to create this liquid metal look and smooth out any rough lines as well as boosted the contrast and added a blue glow to really make his KITT pop as the main focus of the banner.

I also wanted to have some depth, so I added some subtle glows and drop shadows to the pieces to make some of them appear to protrude and receed in space which added another layer of excitement to the piece.

This also posed a most interesting challenge as I had never attempted to design artwork for a vertical banner before. This particular design is 35.5 in x 80 in and to give you a idea of how tall that actually is, here's a photo of my 6'1 self standing next to Alex's completed banner.

 

As you can see it's quite tall!

I really want to give a BIG THANK YOU to Alex Wong for graciously promoting my finished work on Facebook and really showcasing what I can do. In fact, because of his efforts I was contacted by my other fellow KOTWC brother, Jason Piper to do almost the same thing for his KITT and on a much tighter deadline!

Not only did I need to do another design (in less amount of time) but Jason wanted it to feel like the same style as Alex's unique style but differ with some of the photos chosen and of course, feature Jason's KITT which features a unique tow-bar in the front and Season 1/2 dash interior.

Keep in mind my friends that this banner is HUGE, so all the photos that I'm trying to use need to be a decent resolution in order to hold up to the larger scale. I like to bring quality to my work and so that leads to my next important note here...

I want to give a BIG THANK YOU to my friends Jessica Hoskins, Jason Spencer of Stormfront Productions/A Shadowy Flight Podcast, and Daniel Trujillo Jr. for allowing me to use their amazing photographs as part of Jason's banner. Without their help, I would have had a hell of a time making all of this work and their hi-res photos really helped this banner shine!

With Jason's banner, I wanted to take into account what he wanted but also add in some differences so it wasn't a copy of Alex's design. So like with Alex's car, I also had to rework a picture (from Jessica) of Jason's unique KITT so it would have that liquid metal look and hold up to the larger scale while also shifting around the photos in the background to better spotlight Jason and his car as well and include everyone from the cast/crew of the show that signed Jason's car including original KITT designer Michael Scheffe.

It turns out I had to really go back and rework some of the pieces and reposition and scale them to get everything just right.

When you work on larger files like this, it tends to slow your computer and believe me even with 4 gigs of RAM my computer slowed down to a crawl while I worked on this stuff but it was worth the extra time to get everything where I wanted it.

Needless to say a lot of additional thought and effort went into making Jason's banner and I also selected photos that were specific only to him. From his lighted interior behind the KITT headline (courtesy of Jason Spencer) to a very special shot of Jason and David Hasselhoff taken by myself at Knight Rider Festival II. There are some other hidden bits (I love having hidden items in my poster work!) but all in all, I really think these two banners turned out great and I was pleased to help out my fellow Knights while also being able to make some money on the side.

Thanks to Jason Piper for the opportunity to work on something that will be a part of his collection for years to come.

Hopefully these two banners will help make a difference wherever they're displayed and keep the spirit of Knight Rider burning bright for years to come.

-Nick