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.
Entertainment Weekly has a first look at the movie poster for 28 Weeks Later, the sequel to the horror film 28 Days Later. The article is a bit underwhelming, but it does have an interesting quote by Fox Atomic senior VP of print advertising Karen Crawford. Discussing the “concession” of re-using the biohazard title treatment logo from the previous 28 Days Later poster:
“I’d like it to not have that logo. But, of course, this is a movie we’re advertising.”
We can easily imagine a cynical tone in her voice when saying that.
The why-oh-why-must-we-be-shackled-by-this-logo-from-the-past anecdote reminds us of a light bulb joke about designers (or anyone in a creative field, for that matter):
Q: How many graphic designers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Does it have to be a light bulb?
If you chuckled at that joke then you probably are a designer, or work in a creative field. This light bulb joke also happens to be the ONLY joke about graphic design that we know of. Niche jokes aside, the Fox exec quote seems to explain why the 28 Weeks Later poster tries to hide the biohazard symbol by fading the edges of the symbol behind the logotype. This is an unfortunate choice since the faded red of the logo clashes with the duotone street art style of the rest of the poster’s key art. It also doesn’t help that fading the color red can sometimes read as pink in color. It looks like the biohazard logo fell victim to death by half-hearted inclusion, which many designers are familiar with.
One of the most popular promotions for the Saw movie franchise has been the annual Saw Halloween Blood Drive. This event seems to be a sly nod to the 1950s exploitation film era practice (pioneered by director William Castle) of warning the audience of the dangers of said horror film, complete with costumed medical personnel hired to appear at theaters to handle any audience medical emergencies that may arise from the “terror” depicted onscreen.
For the Saw and Saw II film releases, Lionsgate invoked their own image of medical personnel, in the form of a “Saw Nurse” appearing on the Halloween Saw Blood Drive poster and Saw II Blood Drive poster. Both promo posters were created in-house at Lionsgate, featuring the photography of Lionsgate President of Marketing Tim Palen. Keeping things in the studio family, Senior VP Erika Schimik appears as the nurse in both of Palen’s first two blood drive posters.
For the 2006 3rd Annual Saw 3 Blood Drive, the studio released a set of Saw nurse promotional posters featuring new photography by Tim Palen of several different “Saw Nurses” (including Erika Schimik making her third appearance). The five Saw III Nurse posters each feature various poses and groupings of gothic Saw nurses, ready to handle all the bloodletting needs.
Unlike the 1950s exploitation counterparts, these posters actually promoted something helpful: a real life blood drive that encourages fans to donate blood. For the 2004 1st Annual Saw Halloween Blood Drive, the blood drive collected 4,200 pints of blood. The 2005 2nd Annual Saw II Blood Drive garnered 10,000 liters of blood. The upcoming blood drive hopes to top the previous two in the amounts of blood “taken”.
Speaking of bloodletting, despite the good work of the annual Halloween promotion for blood donations, it seems the American Red Cross may not have appreciated the Saw nurses wearing the iconic (and trademarked by international treaty) Red Cross logo on their sexy uniforms. In response, Lionsgate has removed all the red crosses from the uniforms in a revised set of Saw III blood drive posters, with the creepy nurses no longer appearing to be working for the Red Cross, but still wanting your blood. For some reason, Lionsgate has a knack for creating banned Saw posters. Apparently having a movie poster banned or “censored” is a modern badge of honor.
The International Red Cross is fairly aggressive about stopping outside parties from using the red cross logo beyond use as a protection symbol established by the Geneva Convention. Some companies are allowed to use the red cross logo if their products existed before 1905, such as products produced by Johnson & Johnson. Since most people identify the logo as a universal symbol relating to medical care and aid, the red cross logo has appeared in everything from video games to lifeguard t-shirts — but in this modern age of intellectual property litigation, companies have been removing the red cross logo to avoid possible infringement:
A red cross symbol is not a generic symbol for first-aid, emergency, hospitals, healthcare or medical services, products or personnel. The red cross symbol is a trademark owned by the American Red Cross and protected by federal and state trademark law, unfair competition law and anti-dilution law, and it is also protected by federal criminal law (See 18 U.S.C. 706, 917). The American Red Cross vigorously pursues those who infringe American Red Cross trademarks.
Red cross logos aside, don’t forget to donate blood: “This Halloween, Give ‘Til It Hurts.”
There’s an old adage among film advertising art directors when dealing with unnecessary pain and suffering at the hands of a studio client with an MBA: “At least I’m not a copy writer.”
There’s also an old adage among film advertising copywriters when dealing with unnecessary pain and suffering at the hands of a studio client with an MBA: “At least I’m not a copy editor.”
(I guess this “At least I’m not…” downhill progression continues until it ends somewhere around working at the front gate on the studio lot.)
The weblogs Defamer and The Velvet Blog have picked up on the frustration of virgins everywhere when a keen-eyed observer noted the missing hyphen in the title on The 40-Year-Old Virgin one-sheet, only to see it return on the DVD key art. (That missing hyphen would translate to 40 One-Year-Old Virgins versus a single 40-Year-Old-Virgin.)
We’re guessing execs at the studio didn’t really care about the proper punctuation, and simply went with the all-governing mantra of what “looked better” (to them). We’ve never heard of any film ad exec ever breaking open to read an ad placement company’s “style guide” — unless it’s spelled out in a “contractual”, anything is possible when it comes to copy on a poster.
Sniping aside, this type of punctuation pain isn’t exclusive to copywriters and proofreaders — many a graphic designer has cringed at all those “foot marks” (') taking the place of a proper “apostrophe” (’) in titles/logos/copylines/etc.
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.
In 1989 Paramount Pictures released a teaser poster for the horror film Friday The 13th Part 8: Jason Takes Manhattan. The poster depicted hockey masked killer Jason Voorhees slicing a large knife through the well known I LOVE NY logo. This was a fairly effective movie poster design which gets the “killer tourist” plot point across quickly. (In reality, the Jason character only spends the final few minutes of the film in New York City.)
But Jason Voorhees was no match for the New York State Department of Economic Development, which owns the trademark to I ♥ NY. The state tourism office demanded the poster be pulled. Paramount quickly replaced the poster. This was probably for the best, since the state of New York spends a lot of time suing anyone using any variation of I ♥ [blank].
The I LOVE NY logo was designed in 1976 by legendary graphic designer Milton Glaser. The logo is said to be the most imitated logo in history. It was part of a campaign to pull the state of New York out of its economic slump in the 1970s.
