I am a terrible blogger. The previous post reminded me that I had started a series of posts on the history of sci-fi and horror movie posters. The posts were all taken from a term paper I had written on the subject. Looking back I see that I only got about half way through converting the text into blog posts. Once again, I am a terrible blogger.

Rather than try to squeeze another 4 or 5 posts out of this, I’m repenting by posting the entire PDF, here.

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Topics: Abominable Plakatstil, Movie Posters, Movies, School

The release of James Cameron’s special effects extravaganza Avatar has the graphic design community in an uproar. Typophiles everywhere have their collective knickers in a twist because the films marketing team couldn’t find any money in their 150 million dollar budget to spend on a custom typeface.  Google “Avatar Papyrus” and you’ll see what I’m talking about. That’s right, the Avatar movie posters, trailers, and other promotions elected to use Papyrus as their typeface.

There are two typefaces that are almost universally despised among designers: Comic Sans, and Papyrus. Most people won’t even blink when they see either of these fonts being used. Designers, however, are prone to violent hysteria at the site of something like the Avatar movie poster.

So what’s wrong with Papyrus? Why all the hatred of a typeface? Let’s look at the most common criticisms that have arisen since the release of Avatar, and why most of them are irrational:

Papyrus is overused

This may be true, but I don’t think it justifies the ubiquitous hatred. Helvetica is the most used typeface in the world and, while it has its detractors, you don’t see a massive outpouring of criticism every time it finds its way into a movie poster. Papyrus is overused for 2 reasons: it comes free with most computers and because it works (more on this later).

Papyrus is used improperly

There is simply no defense for using something like Papyrus for body copy. This is no reason to hate the typeface, however. Any typeface can be used poorly. It’s hard to argue that the Avatar logo would have looked better set in, say, Times New Roman:

Or maybe Franklin Gothic:

Either of these would have been poor choices. Papyrus may not have been the best option, but I don’t know that you can really say it was “misused”. At least it approaches an appropriate “feel” for the design.

The subtitles, on the other hand… If the outrage over Avatar’s use of Papyrus has any real merit, it is this. The film apparently uses Papyrus for its subtitles, which is just as bad as using it for body copy. Papyrus is a display face, and should only be used for headlines, or similar reasons. Set at smaller sizes or in larger strings of text, it puts a lot of unneeded strain on the eyes.

Using Papyrus is lazy

One of the reasons Papyrus is used so much is because it is “easy”. Need something that is vaguely Egyptian, Asian, sort of ethereal, or maybe even Western? Just use Papyrus, and you’re done. As I said earlier, one reason Papyrus is used so much is because it works. It has a generic exotic quality that makes it versatile. Plus it is easy to read.

The laziness accusation comes from the fact that a designer should be able to find a different font that is more specifically tailored to the design. This argument holds more water than most of the other criticisms of Papyrus. The designers behind the Avatar promotions should have enjoyed a large enough budget to purchase any typeface they wanted, or even commission something unique. From a marketing standpoint, it would be better to have a unique, or at least more obscure, font that people will come to associate with your product.

Then again, countless big budget movies use Trajan Pro in their promotions as well. No doubt any one of them could come up with a couple hundred dollars to use something different.

Papyrus is ugly

This is the type of circular argument that drives me nuts. “Papyrus sucks because it’s ugly.” That’s like saying “it sucks because it sucks.” It’s fine to say you think it’s not aesthetically pleasing, but that is your opinion. I think most of Picasso’s art is ugly as dingleberries, but that’s just my opinion, nothing more. It doesn’t mean that no one else should enjoy his work.

You may think Papyrus is ugly, but there are many people who find it visually pleasing. What makes you right and them wrong? Your education? Your experience? Those things only give you different lens through which to view the world. If you can’t give a reasonable explanation as to why you find something ugly, then you just sound pompous.

Conclusion

In the end, I think what graphic designers really don’t like about Papyrus is that it is often used by amateurs or non-designers. It’s not so much that the font itself is so bad, but that by virtue of its reputation no “real” designer would use it, especially not for a high profile project. When an average person sees Papyrus they think nothing of it. When a designer sees Papyrus, they think, “that must have been designed by someone’s brother, or cousin, or someone else completely unqualified to be a designer. Whoever paid for that should have hired me instead.”

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Topics: Design, Movie Posters, typography

The Incredible Shrinking Artist
Hollywood studios seem to have a habit of disrespecting talent, at least until someone shows them how much money the talent can make them. Long after Hollywood realized the potential drawing power of their stars, they continued to treat their poster artists like beasts of burden. In his book The Art of Noir, Eddie Muller writes:

Figure 10: Vertigo (1958) – Saul Bass employs a dizzying spiral design to evoke the feeling described by the title.

As the business boomed, a more factory-like efficiency was imposed on the product—and the “paper.” The growth of suburbia, with its thousands of new theaters, the demand for more movies, and the strident clamor for attention in an increasingly competitive marketplace conspired to transform poster art. In the 1940s, studio publicity departments became sweat-shops. Most postwar paper—especially for B-films—was created by anonymous artists who held no copyright or claim of authorship once their work was shipped to the printer. (Muller 10)

Poster artists really began to gain respect in the 50’s. The director Otto Preminger was a pioneer of the scorched earth style marketing campaign that is common place today. Preminger helped bring fame to Saul Bass when he hired the designer to work on the posters and an animated title sequence for The Man with the Golden Arm in 1955. (King 6-7) Bass ushered in a new era of film credits, moving away the dull, stationary lettering of the past. (Rennie)

Bass would go on to become a legend in the world of movie posters, working with horror/suspense master Alfred Hitchcock. Among other’s, Bass’s partnership with Hitchcock produced the famous poster for Vertigo. (See figure 10)

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Topics: Abominable Plakatstil, Movie Posters, Movies, School

Figure 8: I Walked With a Zombie (1943) – A solitary eye leers out from behind an outreaching hand.

Figure 9: Top: The Shining (1980) – Jack Nicholson’s eyes show menace, while Shelly Duvall’s show horror. Bottom: 28-Weeks Later (2007) – The eyes are the clear focal point of this poster.

Figure 6: Top: Frankenstein (1931) Bottom Left: Dracula (1931) Bottom Right: The Mummy (1932) – All 3 films were released by Universal, which might explain the striking similarities in these posters. Though they were once relegated to the B-list, the actors from these films have become almost as iconic as the villains they portrayed.

Figure 7: King Kong (1933) – Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1933 – The yellow lettering of the title overlaps the blue building on which Kong is perched. Blues and yellows were quite prevalent in 30’s film posters.

Posters of the Night

Science fiction and horror didn’t really come to Hollywood until the 1930’s. Classic movie monster films like Dracula, Frankenstein, and The Mummy were among the first. (See figure 6) These favored the use of large yellow or red type, often arched, for the title. You see a similar effect with the type on the poster for King Kong. (See figure 7)

The Posters Have Eyes

During the 40’s we start to see early examples of a trend Carol J. Clover refers to as “The Eye of Horror.” In her book Men Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film. Clover writes:

Eyes are everywhere in horror cinema. In titles: The Eyes of Laura Mars, Eyes of a Stranger, The Hills Have Eyes, The Eye Creature, Terrorvision, Scanners, White of the Eye, Don’t Look Now, Crawling Eye, Eyes of Hell, Headless Eyes, and so forth. Or on posters, videocassette box covers, and other promotional materials, where wide-open eyes staring up in terror (for example) at a poised knife or a naked face or something off-box or off-poster are part of the standard iconography. (166)

We see this somewhat with the posters for Frankenstein and Dracula, but more so in the 40’s with the posters for films like I Walked with a Zombie. (See figure 8)
This trend has continued all the way to the present day, as we can see from the posters for the Shining and 28 Weeks Later.(See figure 9)

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Figure 3: Birth of a Nation posters (1915) – Birth of a Nation was one of the first films to be promoted with multiple poster designs.

Mister DeMille, I’m Ready for my Poster
D.W. Griffith and Cecil B. de Mille were two of the earliest directors to make feature length films. In her book, A Century of Movie Posters: From Silent to Art House, Emily King writes:

Longer films such as those produced by Griffith and DeMille require higher budgets and must be justified by greater box-office returns. These epics were heavily promoted, by early 20th-century standards, and the development of the feature film went hand in hand with that of the film poster. (21)

Figure 4: From left to right: Alien Resurrection (1997), I Know What you Did Last Summer (1997), Seven (1995) – Even the horror genre isn’t immune to the floating head poster phenomena.

Big money meant big advertising campaigns. Films started enjoying promotion from more than one poster design. (See figure 3) Throughout the history of film, increasing budgets continually impact the production of posters.

The Floating Head Poster

Figure 5: Metropolis (1927) – Heinz Schulz-Neudamm’s poster for Metropolis is iconic.

One of the earliest trends to form in film posters involves the dominant presence of actors and actresses. By the mid 1910’s film studios began to realize the power of the Movie Star. (Learn About Movie Posters) Posters began to showcase big name actors and actresses. Not only do the images get bigger but so do the type sizes of the names. Horror movies are often considered pure B-list affairs, but even in this genre we will see the rise of “big names” such as Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi.

Perhaps the unfortunate result of the rises of the Hollywood star is what some call the Floating Head film poster. These are posters in which the entire composition is dominated by giant headshots of the film’s stars. (See figure 4) This trend was lampooned on the web site FunnyOrDie.com

The Roaring 20’s

During the 20’s movies grew into a real industry. In 1919 The National Screen Service was founded. This institution would later play a major role in the production of movie posters. The NSS was like the Gestapo of movie promotion for roughly 40 years, starting in the 1940’s. (Learn About Movie Posters) The 20’s gave birth to the first major film studios, most of which are still with us today, including Warner Brothers, Paramount, and MGM (Dirks) Last but not least, the 20’s gave us The Jazz Singer, the first “talkie”. (Jolson.org) With movies becoming such big business, the studios spent even more money on poster art.

One of the last silent films of note was released the same year as The Jazz Singer. Metropolis is considered one of the most influential films in the Science Fiction genre, and its poster is one of the most recognizable ever made. (See figure 5)

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Topics: Abominable Plakatstil, Movie Posters, Movies, School

Figure 1: L’Arroseur Arrose (1885) – This poster focuses more on the experience of watching a film, rather than the film itself.

I recently turned in a research paper about science fiction and horror movie posters for my History of Graphic Design class. Not only did I get an A on the assignment, but the teacher asked if he could use it as the model paper for future classes. (Of course I said yes!)

I want to share, but 3000 words is a bit much for one post. So I’ll be splitting it up into a series of posts, starting with this one:

Introduction: Two Designs Enter, One Design Leaves

If you tossed all known forms of graphic design into the Thunderdome, and sat down with a tub of popcorn to watch them fight it out, movie poster design would have a good chance of emerging at the end, covered in the blood of its enemies. Of course, it would depend largely on what criteria were used to determine the winner.

The movie poster would have a huge advantage, were you to judge such a contest on public adoration. People love movie posters. They represent the dream of any marketer: advertising so effective that people yearn not just to look upon it, but to display it for others to see, and are even willing to pay for the right to do so.

Were you to judge such a contest on importance to an advertising campaign, the movie poster would be a fierce competitor against the mighty logo. Similar to a logo, the poster is the lynchpin of a film’s advertising machine.

The Birth of an Art Form

“Even though everybody hates the Americans, they’re still watching American movies.”
-Roland Emmerich

Figure 2: Trip to the Moon (1902) – This might just be the first “floating head” poster. More on this later.

My discussion will revolve mostly around American movie posters, specifically those of the science fiction and horror genres. Cinema may have been born in France, but by the 1920’s it had grown up and moved to California. (Sklar 4) This is not to say that Europe ceased making movies, but that Hollywood has long been the nexus of the film universe.

By examining the trends of science fiction and horror movie posters throughout the years we can use those genres as a lens to look at movie poster design as a whole. As a basic foundation, a brief history of movie posters in general, as well as cinema it self, is in order.

Jules Cheret, famed pioneer of posters, gave birth to the movie poster with an 1890 lithograph advertising the short film Projections Artistiques. (Learn About Movie Posters) The films from this period more closely resemble today’s home movie than the blockbusters on the big screen. The art form was so new that people were entertained just by watching a picture move. The posters for such films reflected this. (See figure 1)

The novelty of watching moving pictures for the sake of seeing pictures move faded, and before long films began to tell stories. In the early 1900’s, a magician by the name of Georges Melies saw the potential for trickery in the new medium and developed the first special effects. (Encarta) His innovations gave birth to narrative filmmaking. His Le Voyage Dans La Lune (A Trip to the Moon) is an icon of the birth of the modern film, and is regarded as the first Science Fiction movie. (Dirks) The poster for this film represents the film rather than the theater going experience. (See figure 2)

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Topics: Abominable Plakatstil, Movie Posters, Movies, School