Posterwire.com is a movie poster weblog. From images of the latest Hollywood one-sheets to vintage movie posters, this film poster weblog hopes to offer a bit of insight into film key art.
Dark Horizons has a high resolution picture of what they report to be the final Superman Returns logo. This is the second variation of the logo to appear online, following an earlier silver version of the Superman logo from a month ago. (Then there is the third version of the Man of Steel’s logo, which appears on the Superman suit worn by actor Brandon Routh.)
These Superman shields reflect the current trend of 3D rendered film logos in film advertising. The Dark Horizons site claims that this will be the “final logo to be used in the poster” for Superman Returns, but if we’ve learned anything about movie posters (and Warner Bros. and their superhero franchises), nothing is final.
There’s a common saying among movie poster designers and art directors when designing film title logos: “When in doubt, use Trajan.”
And why such a mantra? “Clients love it. They love it’s elegant look and always gravitate towards it or similar style typefaces.”
A better illustration of the use of the Trajan typeface in movie posters can be found in the excellent short film available from the stock agency Veer: “Etched in Stone” by Cheshire Dave.
Trajan was created by font designer Carol Twombly in 1989. As mentioned in the Veer “Etched in Stone” short film, the type is based on the classic etched style of ancient Roman era serif lettering. As a display typeface, it’s influence is wide reaching in the world of one-sheet logotypes — even film logos that aren’t technically using Trajan are using similar looking fonts or typefaces derived from the Trajan lineage.
Speaking of type, if you need help in identifying the likes of Trajan (or any other typefaces used in movie posters and elsewhere), look no further than the Type Identification forum over at the great site Typophile.com. You can also try IDing a font by uploading an image sample to WhatTheFont.
Paramount Pictures has released a new teaser poster for the upcoming Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg science fiction film War of the Worlds. This “bowling with the Earth” image reverts back to the style of the very first War of the Worlds teaser poster, dropping the “Ben-Hur” style logo of the last advance poster we mentioned previously.
It’s interesting to note that the film’s title treatment keeps changing, depending on what trailer, poster, or other piece of War of the Worlds key art you are looking at. The main reason behind this is that each aspect of a film’s campaign: the PR, the marketing, and the film production itself are handled by different sets of people, working at different times, with different agendas/interests. That’s why a film’s poster title treatment doesn’t usually match the film’s trailer logo, or in the title screens of the film itself.
Master typographer Ed Benguiat is one of the most important font and logo designers in the modern era of design and publishing. He has created the lettering used in logotypes for the New York Times, Sports Illustrated, Esquire, and Playboy. He designed such typefaces as Avant Garde Gothic and Caslon, which you probably have installed on your computer as you read this. (For you typophiles out there, House Industries has a font collection tribute to Ed Benguiat you may be interested in.)
Edward Benguiat also produced type used in movie posters, including logos for Planet of the Apes and Super Fly. It’s interesting how a good logo can elevate a poster for films about those “damn dirty apes” or a 70s cocaine drug dealer. This is especially true in the case of the one-sheets for Super Fly, which gives the wonderfully “swashy” Benguiat logo the prominence it deserves. Blaxploitation never looked so good.
We have covered various movie poster illustrators in the past, but the modern movie poster is a graphic designer’s medium. And when discussing movie poster design, the subject begins with legendary graphic designer Saul Bass.
Saul Bass brought a designer’s sense of iconography and purpose to film posters, and more importantly, to film-making in general. The man who created the AT&T logo designed only a few film posters in his early career, but his designs were enough to change the direction of film key art. When looking at his poster designs for films like Anatomy of a Murder, Vertigo, and Exodus, one can see how Bass was able to encapsulate a film’s narrative direction in a visual identity through graphic design.
His early success in film poster key art led Saul Bass to his most famous contribution to motion pictures: designing opening title sequences. Until that time, a film’s opening credits were likely to be a mundane listing of personnel involved with making the film. Bass changed all that when he established film title design as an art form, especially in his famous collaborations with director Alfred Hitchcock.
The influence of the groundbreaking design work of Saul Bass continues today, whether it’s the playful opening titles in the recent film Catch Me If You Can or the controversial “homage” in the one-sheet for the Spike Lee film Clockers.
One way to make a film feel epic and grand in scale in a piece of advertising art is the use of a “forced perspective” style logo. Why have a small understated film logo (known as a title treatment) when you can have it towering like a building over everything else? In essence, the logotype becomes part of the physical environment of the poster art. This type of perspective logo was especially popular in the 1950s, hence some people might refer to it as a “Ben-Hur” style logo. The logo as a 3D object has become popular again recently (see Lara Croft: Tomb Raider 2 and War of the Worlds), especially with the advent of 3D modeling programs as part of a movie poster designer’s software arsenal.
