Movie Poster Design

demc7

I'm doing a study on movie poster/ DVD cover design for a college elective. It seems an interesting topic, there are so many different examples of typography, layout, graphics, colour etc., all the stuff the lecturers want to hear.

I haven't found any good website that deals with the design principals of movie posters, I'm sure there are some or maybe it is dealt with in a large graphic design website. Any ideas for extra ideas and information about the history of movie poster design?

The main question I have regards the little writing at the bottom of every single poster and DVD cover. The really tall narrow font, that says (the first DVD on my desk) "TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX presents IRWIN ALLEN'S production of "THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE" starring GENE HACKMAN" etc.
Does anybody know what this style is called, how it is achieved, and any history of it?

Thanks
Daniel

Citizen_Erased

If you are looking to replicate this effect and assuming you are using Adobe Photoshop you can highlight a piece of text and bring up the text attribute box (doubt that's its real name) and you can change all the parameters for the text there. So say just choose a similar enough font and then by adjusting the percentage height and percentage width (most important) and other values such as size skew the text until it looks like the desired effect. This should be simple enough to achieve if you have a reference image, like one of your DVD covers, beside you at the time.

Heres what the box looks like in cs3 and it can be summoned one way by going to window > character

(ignore my attributes in the window, they are far from their default origins)

If you aren't actually looking to replicate this style for yourself then I have just missed the target almost entirely:D
Although I guess I could summarise how it is achieved by saying that "the text is skewed horizontally to minimise its width".

As for the name of the style or its history I haven't the foggiest but I'm guessing (and probably stating the obvious knowing me) that it just came about by the need to condense a large amount of information into a small space but still having a striking impact, the idea being to bring to the fore the main subjects such as actors names,studios involved etc by making it larger in size and the more insignificant text like the links and titles being shrunk to minimise the area needed.

Note there is also a Films forum available and may have the more specialised knowledge you require.

Hank_Scorpio

There's quite a few links here. I don't really think Movie Posters have a history per se. Simply because so many people deisgned them and so many movie companies etc., it's more eclectic than anything else. I did hear a rumour or perhaps just in my head, I think that certain movie stars actually want to have their body and head shots bigger than anyone elses on the poster/billboard etc. and have that in their contract.

All movie posters follow the same format.

Large picture of the cast, with the main character bigger than the rest.

Large writing of what film it is.

and then smaller less effective writing detailing the cast, production crew and stuff like that.

Here's a link to many other links

http://desktoppub.about.com/od/posters/Posters_and_Fliers_Poster_Design_Tutorials_and_Examples.htm

Hank_Scorpio

More links

http://www.filmposters.com/vintage-posters/vintage-posters.asp

Hank_Scorpio

http://www.the-forum.com/posters/mp1920.htm