Typographic film posters for the
Director’s Cut Exhibition / Look Hear Design Festival
Displayed as part of the annual Look Hear Design Festival, the show featured creative works inspired by the world of cinema. Among participants were national guests Ken Taylor and Webuyyourkids (with posters for Mondo, an offshoot of Alamo Drafthouse Cinema) and international guests Akiko Stehrenberger (official poster for 'Funny Games', 2007) and Tyler Stout (posters for Mondo / Criterion Collection).
Film posters often contain more visual information than necessary. Too readily design elements give away details without truly engaging the intrigue of viewers; graphic design is made to spoil the plot again and again. Would film posters benefit from a different approach?
Exploring the film poster medium as an opportunity for subversion I removed context and intentionally stripped the visual representation of subject-matter and plot. Visual limitations were put in place by displaying only film titles and necessary aspects in an interesting and experimental way.
To push the project further and avoid the familiarity of genre-typecasting, included film titles, names and companies were created especially for the project (an ambitious task). These identities are unique to each poster and although fictional represent a mix of nationalities. In this way the "films" were given a sense of broad realism (without the trappings of specific locales) with the only objective of each poster being to visually engage.
The resulting series of A1-size posters proved arresting typographic compositions drawing on impact and intrigue over familiarity, pre-existing contexts and visual over-saturation. The implications of this project point to a rethink in the totality of ways we can approach the design problem of representing creative mediums (such as film) graphically.
The Director's Cut and Look Hear Design Festival are initiatives by design studio Zookraft to encourage and promote the Australian design community. For further information and a list of participants visit lookhear.com.au
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