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"Create your own visual style ... let it be unique for yourself and yet identifiable for others." Orson Welles ... auteur | provocateur | stylist | visionary

movie posters III

November 30th 2007 01:31
Ghost in the Shell
This category is possibly my favourite. It’s such a rich and rewarding experience searching and discovering, and re-discovering the weird, wild and wonderful world of movie poster graphic design and artwork.

Rollerbabies
I’ve indulged my more lurid tastes this time round, hell, I’m a lurid kinda guy! Exploitation and seedy genre flicks, the sexadelic and the futuristic, the macho posturing and the foxy allure. There’s so much room for experimentation and for pushing the boundaries of good taste. And therein lies The Rub.


The Voyeur
Sometimes it’s the artwork that does cross the line from what might be considering ‘”classy” unto something that is deemed “crass” that actually makes for a more interesting movie poster image, especially if it captures the essence of the movie more succinctly than something trying only to suggest or hint at.


Alien
I’m a sucker for strong and vivid use of figures and faces and bold and creative use of typeface. I think you’ll find this represented solidly in this selection. And a touch of the provocative too, just for good measure.

Often foreign (ie non-English) artwork is more left of centre, even more abstract than the original Western (or Hollywood) design. For example the Polish poster art for the movie Alien, which, let’s face it, is downright strange. But then, hey, the movie is called Alien, so the graphic designer must have interpreted the title literally. I'm all for creative freedom!

Forbidden Planet

3:10 To Yuma

Beauty and the Beast

Anita

Baby Doll

Bratz

Breakheart Pass

Caged Heat

Death Wish

Deathrace 2000

Descent

Earthquake

Fando & Lis

High Plains Drifter

The Hot Spot

Matador

Logan's Run

The Long Goodbye

Outland

Rollerball

Tenebre

The Warriors

To Live and Die in LA

Vanishing Point


I see ol' craggy-faced Charles Bronson features twice, now he was a well-used poster face in the 70s. But what about my favourites here, apart from the fact that I love them all, I guess if I had to whittle it down to a top three, I'd single out Forbidden Planet, High Plains Drifter and To Live and Die in LA. But hey, that was difficult ... the poster for Deathrace 2000 keeps staring me down!

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record covers II

September 23rd 2007 23:25
Gasolin' - 3
There was always gonna be a second installment of this post, and no doubt a third and fourth and fifth. Let’s face it, there are more record covers out there than there are hot dinners, or should I say hot lunches (see movie posters II).

Of course for every sensational record cover there’s one that just looks wrong. There can be the intentionally wrong, and then there’s the wrong wrong, y’know, just bad concept, bad photography, bad artwork, bad lettering, etc. But I’m certainly not here to dwell on the terrible record covers.

Ohio Players - Honey
I’m here to champion the cool, hip, stylish, innovative, sexy, sophisticated, suave, and altogether classic record covers. Of course, as I will re-iterate from time to time at this blog; taste is in the eye of the beholder. And I wish to blow my own horn here … If taste and beauty are in the eye of the beholder, then I am gifted with 20/20 ocular aesthetics.

But enough of the auto-fellatio, let’s get back to the matter at hand: record covers. Not silly little CD covers, where everything has been scrunched and condensed and compressed and shrunken, but the good ol’ fashioned 12”s of fun. That's where the protein lies.

Like movie posters I tend to gravitate toward the older ones (generally from the 70s and 80s), where there's less of the modern digital manipulation of images and more of the cut and paste, illustration and straight photography approach. Covers where the concept is king.

Me'Shell Nedgeocello - Peace Beyond Passion

David Sylvian - Red Guitar

Rickie Lee Jones - Rickie Lee Jones

Tom Waits - Small Change

Grace Jones - Living My Life

The Eagles - Hotel California

ABC - Beauty Stab

Journey - Escape

Meatloaf - Bat Out Of Hell

Midnight Oil - Diesel and Dust

Billy Joel - Glass Houses

Joe Jackson - Night and Day

Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Relax

Asia - Astra

Bob Dylan - The Freewheelin'

Prince - Dirty Mind

Janet Jackson - Control

Jill Jones - Jill Jones

Debbie Harry - KooKoo

Pink Floyd - A Momentary Lapse of Reason

Herbie Hancock - Headhunters

Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel (aka Melt)

Violent Femmes - Violent Femmes

Visage - Visage


As a teenager I was impressed by the self-effacing Polaroid manipulation of the Peter Gabriel cover (an amazing album too). The Meatloaf album seemed to be in every record collection of every house I visited. Grace Jones' cut out face stared back at you with such masculine authority. H. R. Giger's acupuncture of Deborah Harry's face was cool, yet a little disturbing, while David Sylvian just simmered in his arty shadow. And as for Tom, well, that cover just summed up Mr Waits to a tee.
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movie posters II

September 21st 2007 04:33
Fantasy Film Festival movie poster
I’m returning to the (film) scene of the (graphic design) crime. I couldn’t keep away. I love the look of classic and cult movie posters, especially those from the 60s and 70s. There are many exceptions to the rule, but on the whole these two decades were a particularly inventive and novel period of movie poster design.

Graphic designers don’t use illustration nearly as much as they used to. Too often the movie posters of today use plain head shots all in a pretty row. It’s damn bloody boring. Still, I’d be a hypocrite if I continued to moan, because I do like the use of faces in movie posters, but it all depends on the context.

So with no further adieu I’d like to turn the twenty-four mini spotlights up, ring the foyer bell and usher you all into the auditorium for a little perusal of my second original movie poster exhibition. I’m sure you’ll find something in the gallery that raises your eyebrow, piques your interest, tickles your fancy, even rubs you up the right way.

You might even jot down a few titles and be heading for the video store to line up a weekend’s viewing or three. I mean let's face it, that's what movie posters are meant to do: lure you in and make you wanna see that movie!

Now where’s that bag of popcorn? I know I have some somewhere in that silly large pantry of mine.

Straw Dogs movie poster

Escape From New York movie poster

Three Colours White movie poster

The Blob movie poster

The Bride and The Beast movie poster

Chinatown movie poster

Deliverance movie poster

Flesh Gordon movie poster

Futureworld movie poster

Hot Lunch movie poster

The Hot Spot movie poster

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) movie poster

Anatomy of a Murder movie poster

Piranha 2 movie poster

Prophecy movie poster

Scarface movie poster

Seconds movie poster

Star Wars movie poster

Supervixens movie poster

Taxi Driver movie poster

Two Lane Blacktop movie poster

Wizards movie poster

Tarantula movie poster

Jodorowsky's Dune movie poster


Now there's some seriously funkysexycool poster designs up there ... What are my ultimate faves? Hmmmm, probably Escape From New York, Flesh Gordon, Taxi Driver, Star Wars and Wizards. But I must say that poster to Dune, when Mexican maverick director Alexandro Jodorowsky was attached to direct (and H.R. Giger was the production designer!) is compelling.



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record covers

August 29th 2007 02:18
Ohio Players - Mr Mean gatefold
Where does one start?! This is probably the most difficult of my posts so far, as the list for selection is huge. But then, as I went through my indispensable book 1000 Record Covers by Michael Ochs (man, has that guy got a collection or what?!), I discovered that my personal aesthetics were represented not nearly as often as I thought they would.

Still, despite the thousand covers in Ochs' pictorial archives, that barely touches the tip of the iceberg. There are literally hundreds of thousands of record covers out there, most of which most of us will never see.

Michael Jackson - Off The Wall
I have a fair few records of my own. I’ve been buying vinyl since I was about eleven years old. The first record I bought with all my own money was Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall LP.

I love the record, so for me the cover is cool; Michael in a tuxedo with glowing white socks and a handsome face (he’d had one nose job by then, but that was it), posing against a brick wall. It was a gatefold and it was one of my record treasures until it was stolen from a mate’s DJ crate ten or so years ago. I was quietly devastated. I replaced it, but the new copy doesn’t hold quite the same posterity or nostalgic allure. Another gatefold cover I thought was very alluring was the Diana Ross album Diana. The image used is one of the best photos of her ever taken.

Diana Ross - Diana original cover pic
With cover graphic design I love the imaginative interplay between photography and illustration, the type of fonts used for the text, where the type is placed on the cover (or if there is any text at all!). Sometimes I’m drawn to covers that seem to bare no relation to the album’s title, while others I love for their provocative display of theme(s) relating to the album.

With the arrival of CDs, record cover artwork was diminished, literally. Sure, more room for sleeve notes, but less room for artwork that commanded your attention. Initially I refused to embrace CDs, and then I realised I was probably going to have to replace all my records. I started to, but to my profound relief found the disc jockey industry demand for vinyl meant they weren’t going to be made obsolete so soon.

The following selection represents my love of pure, classic iconographic imagery; the sensual, the fantastic, the witty, the minimal, faces and bodies, line and form, type and text.

Toto - Turn Back

Chicago - Chicago XIV

David Bowie - Heroes

Betty Davis - Nasty Gal

Isaac Hayes - Hot Buttered Soul

Joe Jackson - Look Sharp!

Steely Dan - Aja

Asia - Asia

Marvin Gaye - What's Going On

Parliament - Motor Booty Affair

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - Crush

Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel aka Security

Prince and the Revolution - Parade

Duran Duran - Rio

Carly Simon - Playing Possum

Blondie - Autoamerican

The Beatles - Abbey Road

New Order - Blue Monday

Boston - Boston

Led Zeppelin - IV aka Zoso

The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass - Whipped Cream and Other Delights

Beastie Boys - Licensed to Ill gatefold

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Axis: Bold As Love gatefold


It’s too hard to pick absolute favourites. I love Isaac Hayes' chrome dome bling, I love Blondie's bridge perspective, I love the dual dominance/submission of Carly Simon's pose, I love the moody elegance of Steely Dan, and I love the date stamp of New Order. There’ll definitely be a “mo’ record covers” post that’s fer sure!




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movie posters

August 15th 2007 04:10
Erotic film festival artwork
I love movies. Not too surprising I guess. I love the visual artifice, the narrative invention, the audience manipulation, the realism and the escapism. I also admire imaginative movie poster art. You don’t see as much of it these days. A lot of poster art, especially that which is churned out of the Hollywood machine, uses homogenised images, a mundane use of text and graphics, and tedious tag lines.

The Holy Mountain poster art
Back in the day – the 50s, 60s, 70s and to a lesser extent the 80s - movie poster art was much more imaginative and expressive, it was also more risqué and provocative. This is a generalisation I’ll admit, but it leans far more toward the rule than the exception.

The poster art that I particularly enjoy belongs to movies of the subversive, transgressive and exploitative genres; science fiction, horror, gangster, psychedelic, blaxploitation, sexploitation, black comedy. More often than not these genres lend themselves to more colourful (I use the word in its broader definition) imagery and unique interplay between graphics and artwork.
Metropolis wallpaper poster art
I appreciate the graphic artists who are clever and/or subtle in the way they incorporate (or not) images lifted directly from the movie. In some cases still photographers are brought in to specifically shoot pictures not even in the movie. In the 50s, posters frequently used an illustrator to conjure a more elaborate, far more stylized and provocative, interpretation of one or more of the images from the movie.

The movie posters of past decades are the kinds I’d love to see exhibitions of. Huge mounted prints skillfully lit in a gallery, so I could admire them leisurely and close-up. I’ve owned some great movie posters in my time. Unfortunately they’ve been damaged along the way, or in some cases I’ve lost them when I’ve moved house. I've seen the majority of these movies and I’d certainly love to own all of the posters too!

A Boy And His Dog movie poster

Galaxina movie poster

Badlands movie poster

Black Cobra movie poster

Black Emanuelle movie poster

Blood Beach movie poster

Blue Velvet movie poster

Slave of the Mountain God movie poster

Dark Star movie poster

Devil Girl From Mars movie poster

Fellini's Casanova movie poster

Foxy Brown movie poster

Liquid Sky movie poster

Mean Streets movie poster

Metropolis movie poster

Modesty Blaise movie poster

Nosferatu 1979 movie poster

Attack of the 50ft Woman movie poster

Sin City movie poster

Solaris movie poster

Superfly movie poster

Withnail and I movie poster

The Time Machine movie poster

Cul-de-Sac movie poster


It’s difficult to choose absolute favourites, since I enjoy different visual elements from each of the examples, but if push came to shove … the arty-farty in me adores the poster to Cul-de-Sac, the sensualist in me caresses the Black Emanuelle silhouette, the minimalist me appreciates Solaris, while the trashbag in me digs Galaxina, and the modern noir-head finds the Mean Streets artwork of a very high calibre … Hot damn, I love ‘em all!






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jokers

July 27th 2007 01:32
A joker in the hand is worth much more in the bush
When I was teenager I came up with a brilliant idea. Forget collecting coins, stamps, dolls, ties, matchbooks, model fucking airplanes … I was gonna collect “jokers”. I was gonna ruin as many packs of playing cards as I could by stealing the jokers from them and displaying them in a portfolio using the face of one to exhibit the joker itself, and the back of the other to represent the generic design of the playing card.

I never followed through. I was too lazy. I collected perhaps a dozen and then realized it was too much hard work, plus I’d no doubt piss too many people off. I wasn’t gonna spend my life searching high and low for obscure makes of playing cards. Fuck that


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