Metropolis movie poster

I have to admit that I was looking forward to seeing the posters in this collection by Designer Daily. I think they’re very good for the most part. But the ones that I’m still thinking about are the ones that I did not expect to see in this collection.

I didn’t have any posters in mind, but I was not surprised to see the awesome Metropolis poster, 50′s sci-fi posters like The Forbidden Planet, and swinging 60′s posters like Vertigo. Those are the kind that while they do show very iconic and memorable eras of the movie posters, they represent what we already knew–our own western and typically commercial movie posters.

This collection becomes more memorable because it is including different posters that are from other countries and film genres. I was very glad to see the poster for The Wall (rock musical film), and the posters from movies from other countries like Teorema.

The collection also shows that no matter what era, a great movie poster could be executed many different using different elements to support the composition and convey the meaning. From typography to image+type placement to shapes+lines, you can clearly see that there is an abundance of things to do that are unique.

Why then is it that so many movie posters today have so many floating heads, cityscapes, actors standing around, and so many other unimaginative things. There is so much to choose from.

Rocky IV movie poster

Head back over to Designer Daily for a different collection of Cold War propaganda. This time the focus is on pro-america. All the examples are from post World War II. It also covers literature and comic books, media and advertising, and movies. Note how much more commercial the types of media that are covered. The nature of the west or a product of the post-WWII boom, or both?

I can’t help but notice how much more emphasis this collection puts on making the other side a villain. I also don’t think it’s mere coincidence and that the folks that gathered these had anything like this in mind when they put these together. As a mid-thirties Gen-Xer I clearly remember how the east was portrayed everywhere in the media up until the end of the Cold War–and even after. Rocky IV is still one of my favorite movies of all time despite all of this.

Another thing that I noticed, is that the commercial nature of many of the samples in this collection–and therefore the lofty goal of reaching vast audiences, takes away from the designs and leaves and they fall short of greatness. They don’t even evoke any nostalgia. Hm.

Sample courtesy of Designer Daily.