Minimal Poster; Minimal Art

Having decided to design a film poster for myself to decorate the ol’ pad, I finally settled on one of the greatest films in the history of cinema: John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon. Not only a personal favourite and bona fide classic, but it’s also one that hasn’t been done to death by designers the world over, a la Star Wars or Blade Runner. Plus it would really tie the room together.

I began to work on my rough designs, but had a huge amount of difficulty zeroing on a final idea; one featuring the cast, one a retro noir-esque effort, a more modern counterpart, one featuring the titular statue, one a mish-mash of all of the above, and one a bare bones minimalist effort.

It was this that leapt up and caught my attention the most, as it seems that the minimalist style is the hot aesthetic in design circles. Cold, clever designs for classic films has been going on for a while, but now has ballooned into a mainstream concern for designers with the news that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are to archive the Alamo Drafthouses’ growing collection of original film posters designed by contemporary graphic artists.

Taking a long look at these new designer posters, I came to a realization as to how I felt about this current craze, and a possible answer as to why I was having such a hard time with my own; I think I hate them. The simple iconography used to represent a film is often weak and unimaginative, never summing the film in any way, and almost impossible to unravel without any prior experience of the film. The film posters display, at their worst, a cheap gag; nothing more than a visual knock-knock joke, and at their best, graphic design masturbation; an empty stimulation by designers for other designers to smirk and nod over, a private club for a select few to “get it”; an in-joke of self-gratification.

A film poster needs to represent the films artistic purpose, while also addressing its commercial needs; a work of art that gets bums on seats. Attention grabbers that communicate the commercial qualities of the film, be it movie stars, filmmakers, story or effects; part of the films identity while also becoming an individual piece of art in its own right. This has been the challenge of designers working on real film posters, a challenge never taken to a greater standard than those by Saul Bass and Drew Struzan.

The Jurassic Park poster by Jamie Bolton is a perfect example of the minimalist wave not saying enough. The film deals with weighty themes of man versus nature and his place in it, the commercialisation of nature and genetic engineering, as well as being a terrific theme park thrill ride of adventure and dinosaurs…oh, the dinosaurs… all perfectly handled by a master filmmaker at the top of his cinematic powers.

The poster fails dismally to address any of these, instead the designer opted to show a glass of water from one of the films iconic scenes. If you’re like me, you know what scene, and the poster might’ve even made you smile. Here’s the thing. Imagine you’re in 1993, you go to the cinema to view the (underrated) Last Action Hero and you catch a glimpse of this poster; what do you think you would feel? Would you be excited, curious, deflated? Watching the film, the poster would be explained, but you would most certainly leave the screening wondering why, of all things, they settled on this moment and not any of the others that relate to story, character, theme or action. The poster is terrible, further underlined by the fact that the actual Jurassic Park poster is a graphic design classic.

I can’t help but feel that there’s a lot of design that seems to follow down this path; eye-catching, pretty, but empty and unintelligent. Why go further with your ideas when interesting typography and a smartass hook will see you through.

Unfortunately I still have Jaws, Alien and the 1953 War of the Worlds in my eyes; there’s nothing more luminous than a great idea beautifully executed.

And this takes me back to The Maltese Falcon. Although, in principal, I respect the minimalist goal of poster design, the work needs to speak to the audience about the film itself, the theme and ideas the film itself speaks about. The poster needs to do the film justice, a tall order when dealing with such a milestone of a film. It’s certainly a challenge, but one I’m looking forward to tackling… as soon as I get an idea.