This illustrator is creating beer mat homages to famous movie bars
LONDON -- If you've ever secretly yearned to sip butterbeer in the Hog's Head Inn or rest your legs alongside some hobbits in the Prancing Pony, you're almost certainly not alone.
Some films are so iconic that even their settings can achieve legendary status, and the fictional bars and pubs that crop up in the likes of Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings are some of the best examples of this.
This is where illustrator Tom Ward comes in. The London-based graphic designer has recently shared a series of colourful (and impressively believable) beer mats based on the best-loved bars and pubs from iconic movies.
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"I wish I could say I was sitting in a pub and had the idea but it didn’t quite happen that way," Ward told Mashable. "I was actually planning to do a movie poster series and trying to think of how to do this in a new way.
"Whilst looking at a Shaun of the Dead poster concept, I started to play around with objects from the film like records, a cricket bat and the Winchester pub. This led to me thinking about pub signs, then coasters and the rest seemed to fall into place naturally."
" I spent quite a lot of time on YouTube researching specific scenes from each movie where you see the bars/pubs/clubs," explained Ward when we asked how he created the individual mats. "I wanted the design and typography to resemble the movie as much as possible and feel authentic."
And you can't fault Ward for his level of dedication.
"I may have gone slightly overboard, though," he continued. "For example, the chef on the Back to the Future coaster comes from the envelope that Marty writes to Doc saying ‘Do not open until 1985’. And when it came to Superman 2, I couldn’t quite make out the words on the film clip but managed to track down an original version of the script that included a short description of the diner sign."
And as for the ones Ward likes best?
"My favourites to work on were probably Club Obi Wan's dragon illustration and Fat Sam’s elegant Art Deco style," he said. "I also like how you can’t read the Star Wars coaster unless you are fairly geeky.
"Needless to say I can read it no problem."
You can see more of Ward's work on his Instagram and Twitter.
