The art of working with only two colours has mostly vanished. It was a financial constraint, because printing in four colours used to be very expensive. So designers made a special effort to use black and a special colour to maximum effect.
The art of working with only two colours has mostly vanished. It was a financial constraint, because printing in four colours used to be very expensive. So designers made a special effort to use black and a special colour to maximum effect.
Click Cover for more Heroism!
Guys like two forms of Pornography: sex and war. Every action or war movie is a masturbation on violence, heroism and camaraderie that only war breeds.
War Pornography is also about cowardice, because it’s consumed from a save distance away from any real bullets or obligations.
This cover has all the elements of the rugged armchair warrior: sweaty, tough, unshaved, in combat, battered and LONELY …
Click any Pinhead for a larger version.
The Hellraiser movies are graphically as consistent as their storyline. And Pinhead is defiantly the series poster boy (sic) …
I think the last poster strays a bit out of line: it shows some "cyberstyle" influence a la Matrix, the headline has some ugly Photoshop effects (badly done as well) …
But it’s a great series of cheesy posters for some really horrorific films …
Click image for a bigger tunnel.
I love old school title sequences – especially when they are handmade and bombastic. This fake 3D title is amusing, because today we are 3D crazy and CGI effects are everywhere.
Found on Mr Bali Hai’s great Flickr Stream.
There has never been a greater cognitive dissonance between cover and content then with this record.
Or maybe the persuasive percussion were as boring and confusing as the records sleeve?
Otherwise a total design fail!
Click image for more spiders.
Is Mr Shatner really afraid of spiders or is his penis on fire? Some cover artists really are masters of visual innuendo – but not in this case. It sends all the wrong messages …
And the movie was actually terrible as well (you can watch a trailer here).
Is this book for real?! Oh boy …
I dunno what’s more crazy: the title or the overall pinkness of the cover.
I love the Economists dry humour and attitude. The cover is a brilliant idea! It goes all biblical on the new Book of Jobs, in reference to the really old one!
This is old Socialist Propaganda – but honestly not much has changed. You can add to the Clergy level modern Mass Media, Celebrities and Esoteric Consumerism.
And they should add some Politicians, Bankers and Billionaires who piss down the pyramids to visualize Ronald Reagan’s "trickle down economy".
Anything else missing?
Reality has the nasty habit of crashing with advertising and turning it into a perverse new insight.
What a great poster! I love the mixture of classic Greek moments, the sprocket as a gold medal and the mechanic hero in profile. Brilliant!
As usual this old pulp cover is full of ridicules moments: helmets like light bulbs, the perfect line between blaster and the monsters eye, the women wears a miniskirt in space (of course) …
The design of science fiction has become much better since the 1920′s (?), but most scifi movies storylines are still as stupid as this cover …
Simple – yet dynamic design with very unusual colour. Also the direction is unusual – normally dynamic motion in images goes from left to (upper) right.
You can tell it’s an very old advert, because nobody would do masculine stuff in pink / magenta these days.
For me it’s especially funny, because Hasenbräu (Rabbit-Brewerie) is located in Augsburg – a small city in Bavaria that is hardly know for being tough in any way …
Click image for great book art.
Sure modern books are mass produced and hardly receive the care and attention of unique handmade copies back in the days.
But actually it should be the other ways around: modern designers have powerful tools at their hands, so designing a unique books with excellent typo, vignettes and illustrations should be easy.
And best selling books deserve the extra work.
But publishers and authors alike have lost the passion to make great books.
Who do so many designs look the same these days?! Because most designers use the same tools and are too lazy to develop their own styles.
The easiest example to illustrate my point is the Photoshop colour palette. So many lazy designers simply use the first twelve colours in that thing – and don’t bother developing their own colour palette.
That is why we see so many designs using these primary and vibrant colours. It’s any easy choice and mistake to make – and equally boring …
Click images for larger versions.
I usually hate advertising – but this Volkswagen campaign is smart, modest and perfectly plays with the memories many people have in relation to this car.
I am a huge fan of good Infographics – or Infopr0n as I call it. The great Blog "The Toilet Paper" has recently posted an excellent series of visuals about American Tax Payer’s Dollars at work. I love that this series is not just a dumb series of figures, but it also makes you think and look closer. It also reflects perfectly that it takes the money of many (taxpayers) to make a country work.
Excellent work!
Excellent visual design! I love how the graphical title sequence blends into reality.
I often wonder how much these cheap magazines have influenced popular culture and our ideas about "hot women"?
Sexism has always been in art, but only modern mass media allowed the incredible flood of smut.
Sometimes street art combines common knowledge and emotional moments into one great package.
An amazing series of illustrations brimming with cuteness and imagination.
Steven Hill has created an amazing collection of movie title screens, especially old school typographic ones.
And I am loving it!
If you are interested than bring A LOT OF TIME with you to explore all the great designs.
Thanks a lot Steven!
Since I work in design myself I can only applaud the statement above. Too many times I have met and worked with pretentious designers, who really think design can change the world.
But usually they never lift a finger to help other people – they are just obsessed with “pretty” or “cool” stuff.
Bah!
A brilliant minimalist poster for an excellent movie.
I just love the Economist – and this cover was just brilliant!
Click image for a larger version.
Doubt will be an interesting movie – but I like to focus your attention on the great minimalist design: the cross and church merged into one element – and the word “Doubt” itself is a mixture of old and modern the very topic of the movie.
Excellent work!
And another sexist cover that shows everything by showing nothing. This one even has charming racial undertones.
The black guy is bending forward, shoving his crotch in the girls direction. Notice the subtle bulge in his pants. He has a pure white (innocent) suit, golden cane (necklace and belt buckle), but his chest is naked and muscular. You can’t see his face – so he is just another faceless blackmen.
The girl: very white, blonde, skinny and just at the edge of womanhood. Her legs slightly spread, she wear high heels and lipstick.
The image story is a visual lineup starting at her opened mouth, going to the cigarette in her hands, to the lit match in the black guys hand and ends at his crotch bulge. It’s a very oral setup, implying a fiery blowjob, where there is none to be seen.
I wish graphic artists would use such brainpower for more interesting subjects.
Let’s deconstruct this yummy pulp cover:
The male gun is directly aimed at her vagina.
Redheads are supposed to be extra sexual and her red lips and fingernails add some extra horny undertones.
Her skirt is blown away just at the right place to reveal her panties.
The same applies to her blouse to show one of her breasts.
Her unstable posture makes her easy to kick over or press her against the wall. The perfect victim.
Otherwise the cover is high art and perfectly innocent.
Click for a bigger flyer.
Excellent flyer! It’s dynamic, features all colors of the American Flag and communicates all esssential infos in three main ‘lines’. But it’s also a simple and clean – almost humble design – so it communicates the character of Obama and his mission.
Good work.
Ah, they don’t make movie posters like that anymore – and it’s a good thing too, because that means they don’t make stupid movies like that anymore too.
I love the style – first employed by the new Avantgarde and many Soviet propaganda posters. Today’s artists are way to focused on "photoshopping" all elements of an image into perfection – so the poster would look like one seamless piece of art. But I like the collage style and emphasis on different objects.
I love the mind behind these great designs. Make sure to explore the whole Glennz Blog for more brilliant designs – or simply buy one you like on his site or check out his huge portfolio of T-shirts on threadless.
Click image for a larger version.
Click image for a larger version.
Click image for a larger version.
The word subtle or normal doesn’t apply here. Orangina is a nice soft drink around here – nothing special . But I love this advertising campaign: it’s the right amount of surrealism and sexism combined with loads of yellow and orange. And how can anything orange be bad? 
I am a big fan of simplicity and minimalism – and this cover perfectly unites these two design principles. Great work!
Still looks very modern, like the duo tone setup and composition. I am just wondering if that was a generic template they would reuse for every great leader? Can’t wait for the Putin version …
Too much artistic power was wasted in the time of the Soviets for stupid propaganda. But this poster still is looking great and very modern.
I very much preferred Apple’s marketing when it was based on it’s own technology instead of constantly bashing the PC / Windows.
Today it’s way too much focused on lifestyle or labeling PC users as stupid. Don’t tell I am an idiot because I DON’T use a Mac – you are not making any friends with me …
Just brilliant and simple. But I am afraid it won’t reach those minds in their mental war zones and bunkers that need it the most.
I love the simplicity and essence of this poster. All the important elements of the main character and the movie plot are there. Brilliant!
The guy in the background looks suspiciously like Inspector Clouseau?!But I’ll take that hot dame any day …