Graphic Design II - Module 8, Poster Design - Part 1

PART I:

For this exercise, I picked two posters from the movie Metropolis. They combine architecture, graphic design, and scientific imagery for a successful presentation. To many critiques it is known as perhaps is THE most important and influential movie ever made. It was filmed in 1927 and directed by Fritz Lang which is a story about the struggles of the upper and middle classes. These are only two examples of the movie posters. If you like these, there are several more wonderful samples that can be easily found on the internet. The designs were obviously very modern at the time making them even interesting to look at over 80 years later. A classic. [BTW, I found out this film can be seen on youtube.com in its entirety.] Here are my analyses of the posters:

Poster 1:

Symbols: Lady with a futuristic costume including a helmet which suggests space travel

Colors: Sepia tones, analogous since the film was made in b&w

Fonts: Two fonts present, title font is bold and the other smaller one in script

Images: Woman in foreground with eyes closed. Futuristic backdrop. Paramount Pictures Logo.

Feelings: Science Fiction. Modern. Elegance.

Poster 2:

Symbols: “Everyman” figure carrying huge skyscraper of that eraon his back.

Colors: Sepia tones. Warm colors.

Fonts: Large white art neuvo style letters at top very stylish at the time. Modern and san-sarif text the rest

Images: Well drafted and exciting. Symmetrical organization. Background minimal as to not detract from detailed rendering in the foreground. Yellow haze below the building could be a cloud of some sort.

Feelings: Iconographic of the architecture and style of the time.



PART II:

For the next part of the assignment, I thought it fun to analyze what was consider the “best” movie poster as I Googled just that on the internet. I got this website that sells the posters separately but had this one to show what they considered the best. By doing the graphic analysis of “tracing” the organizations, it gave me inspiration to begin my own designs. I came up with four black and white designs that I plan to complete in color in the next module.