What is a movie without its poster? More than just a bit of marketing, posters have evolved into an art form in their own right, showcasing the blistering work of the world’s greatest illustrators and designers with clever concepts, elegant artwork, and bold original ideas. In celebration of my personal appreciation of movie poster design and with the help of the extensive IMP Awards archives, comes our NOW That’s What I Call A Movie Poster! series, highlighting what I think are the best and most iconic movie posters through the years.
The evolution of the movie poster began in the 1870s, when Paris artist and lithographer, Jules Cheret, introduced a printing technique that produced images with intense colour and rich texture. By the early 1890s, the streets of Paris were plastered with lithographic images hawking everything from bicycles to cognac to circus performances. These artful graphics masterpieces became instant collectables, spawning exhibitions, journals and dealers. The first known movie poster produced was for L’Arroseur Arrosé, an 1895 French short black-and-white silent comedy directed and produced by Louis Lumière and starring François Clerc and Benoît Duval. See more on the history of movie posters in our articles History of Movie Posters.
In this series I have showcased movie posters from 1930s and onwards that have demonstrated a different artistic style or perspective to advertise a movie rather than the normal poorly executed photoshop efforts we see today. These movie posters could be described as being clever, daring, intriguing, unforgettable or feature just plain risqué designs, as in the case of movie poster for Felt from 2015. Although, as we have seen over the years a great movie poster doesn’t always translate into a great movie but let’s just enjoy the artwork for now and leave that conversation for another day.
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