Posters - The New Wave

The Hobbit poster which is rightly called a "tapestry" - simply beautiful!

I have always found posters to be fascinating. As much as I love films, I have always craved after those brilliant fan made minimalistic posters or in some cases the originals of the classics. Let's face it, posters have once again, with the ease of internet, become a top priority for film makers in their marketing campaign. These images on paper are the perfect teasers to any film. Placing a poster of a film on a webpage or as an advertisement is the first step taken by most to get news about the film to the masses. Moreover, it is the poster design that also acts as the first impression for the audience. Make a good and intriguing poster and there is a higher likelihood that a person will click on the link. Obviously, posters at movie theatres are as popular as ever. 


I do feel that Hollywood went through a period in the 90s and early 2000s when posters were not given that much importance. Part of it could be because 90s was when home viewing was at a high and thus there was no such need. Surprisingly, the VHS covers from this time have become quite collectable now due to certain nostalgia associated to them. Also, internet was not as accessible as now, so for a poster design to spread like a virus, it had to be something really really special. 


That has changed over the last few years. More and more film-makers are paying attention to posters and coming up with unique and individualistic designs. A number of times competitions are being held by studios to let the audience design posters for an upcoming movie in what is a perfect marketing and design technique. The popularity of fan made posters (once again, especially the minimalistic ones) probably has something to do with this also. Now, be it a fan made poster or an "original", if it's good then it will be tweeted/ReTweeted or Liked on the internet within minutes.


So, I just wanted to share a few posters of movies that are about to be released that have impressed me for different reasons. They might not have the same "cool" and "hip" factor as the minimalistic ones or even the hard to find Polish movie posters, they are still a positive step towards giving poster design a certain art credibility they so rightly deserve.  

The poster of OZ: The Great & Powerful has a rather fairytale look to it,
but I like how it has a somewhat dark feel to it. 

Very 80s and it should be considering most of the actions stars in the
film are from that era.

The poster would make more sense once you have seen the film,
still it says and shows everything you really need to know. 

It's not the best poster around, still interesting as the skull is
made up of VHS tapes.

A teaser poster that just looks amazing.
Even comes close to be being minimalistic. 

Love the old-fashioned style and the crease as if the
poster was folded. Very Tim Burtonesq. 

I do not know anything about the film, but thankfully the poster design
caught my eye before the star of the film. I'm all intrigued now. 

Sign of a big blockbuster film this poster is. Hotly anticipated
the poster provides just the right dose of excitement.

I like this poster because all you have to do is look at the poster and
you have a fairly good idea what the movie will be about.

Probably my favourite TDKR poster, after that of Catwoman for obvious reasons.
Along with the Hobbit tapestry, this has to be my favourite poster in a long long time. 

  

The Return of Keep Calm to the Movies

And so we have it once again... new backgrounds, new adventures, new films... can you  guess the films these Keep Calm prints pay homage too?

KEEP CALM Goes To The Movies

Some of you who follow me on Facebook or Twitter would be aware that my new thing to do is make Keep Calm posters. It's partly due to an iPhone App which makes it rather easy to make them, but still I have been having loads of fun trying to come up with new ones. 


Being a film fan it was only a matter of time before I worked on a few film related Keep Calm posters which can be viewed below... so enjoy and try and guess which films they relate to (some are easy to guess, others not so) and always remember to Keep Calm. 

It's on the Walls – Film Decor!

Rummaging through my old photo stash, looking for photographs for a travel article I was writing, I came across some photographs I took of my college dorm room. I was rather lucky in college for not having a roommate, ever, and pretty much lived in space luxury for the four years I was enrolled. What this also allowed me to do was "decorate" the room according to my own choice and also skip the whole tie on the door routine.

My craze for the movies didn't just start recently. I cannot pinpoint a day, but I do think that this craze came into full form sometime during college. This should be evident from the photographs posted in this article.

As you can imagine, the entire process of putting up everything was tedious and took time, usually from a week to anywhere around three weeks. I normally would avoid any visitors during this time, considering the entire room floor was covered with posters and cuttings. The cuttings, as you might have guessed were mainly from film magazines, and primarily from Empire.

Once the room was ready, each year I would have a "room warming" party with a few friends which was actually a glorified Movie Night. Considering we were in a small town of Germany where English movies were hard to find, I had to take a 45 minute one-way train to Stuttgart, then walk another 15 minutes to The English Shop (which also had a film rental section) and rent a bunch of movies or sometimes episodes of Friends. The same trip would have to be done again within the next two days to return the films.

Now, the whole decoration part was usually fun, what was not was taking it all down at the end of the semester/year. Imagine how loathsome taking off BlueTac from the walls can be, and then multiply it by 10, and that is how I felt. As you would guess, this was one thing no one ever helped me with :-(

Still, I never regretted setting up my room the way I did. It was a nice little place to mingle and just relax after a hard day of classes. Granted, most people might find it distracting to study in a room like this, but for some reason I did not.

Now, at home where there are a number of personalities living under the same roof, I can only dream about having a room like this. I have been generously allowed to have a few (5-6) posters in my home theater. Someday, I just need to man up and get some posters framed and hang them up... obviously before I do that, I better make sure I go out and buy a nice comfortable couch to sleep on :-)