Studio Brief 3: Movie Poster Research and Analysis

Here are a few of my favourite movie posters with a short explanation to why I believe they are so effective:

There are a lot of amazing Polish movie posters which put the original American posters to shame, but my favourite by far is this poster for 'Return of the Pink Panther'.

The design of The Godfather posters is very simple, yet so effective. The use of black and very little white gives a very sinister tone to the design of man which a very sinister facial expression. The colours have connotations of death and the red rose also adds to the theme of death. Just from this poster you can tell the general theme of the film. The puppet master design on the type also gives you a hint at this man being powerful and in control of other people.

Drive is one of my favourite films. The design work on the film is amazing and fits together with the music perfectly to give it a really unique vibe to the whole film. Drive is a 2011 American neo noir crime thriller film directed by Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn, starring Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan, Bryan Cranston, and Albert Brooks. Although Drive shares several characteristics with the similarly-named 1978 Walter Hill car-chase film, The Driver, it is actually adapted from the 2005 James Sallis novel of the same name, with a screenplay by Hossein Amini.

Because of Drives strong and unique visuals it has inspired a lot of alternative movie posters. As you can see in the few examples below they use a specific colour scheme. (pink, dark turquoise, yellow, black).

The design below is a great example of a 2 colour poster that makes good use of both colours. The design has used two icon pieces of imagery from the film and merged them together. The film revolves around a guy who is an expert driver (thus the car) and in a few scenes he uses a metal hammer as a weapon.

The poster designs below were created by the British Illustrator, Olly Moss, who has a created this silhouette style that many people have started mimicking and adapting. The style is so successful because the silhouettes are of such iconic characters that anyone who has arched the film will recognise. The additional details within the silhouettes are of yet more icon scenes from the films. Olly moss' designs are particularly popular because of how he uses the background content to add to the foreground silhouette in a very smart way.