This project was inspired by the covers of the Taiwanese translations of French author Maurice Leblanc‘s novel  “Arsène Lupin.”These novels tell the story of a gentleman thief who steals from the rich and earns the admiration of the poor, each filled with suspense, cunning, and thrilling plots.

To enhance this atmosphere, my visual design employed cinematic camera techniques, bold color contrasts, retro gradients, and vintage typography.

Unable to adhere to a single storyline, I chose to emphasize recurring themes throughout the Arsene Lupin series: the protagonist (Lupin), the heroine, and the criminal, using these three elements to highlight the central storyline.

Storyboards



Moodboard

Creating suspense_camera language
Dutch angle
Compressing the vertical aspect ratio of the frame
As Bowen and Thompson note, “When horizontal and
vertical lines go askew … it causes a sense of
uneasiness and a slight disorientation in your audience.”


(Grammar of the Shot, 2013, 62)
As Eisner argues, the distorted visuals of German
Expressionism—twisted sets, skewed perspectives, and
unnatural proportions
—were designed to externalize inner
psychological tension.


The Haunted Screen, 1969, 23–24).

Creepy gradient
Before Uneven Gradient
After Uneven Gradient

Lower the frame rate from 24 to 12.
24 FPS
12 FPS