Better Than the Original: The Birds

by Lucas Tetrault

Have you ever had a movie poster of any kind hanging in your bedroom, apartment, house, game room, dorm room, or garage? Why did you pick that particular poster? Did it speak to you in some way or were you a fan of the actual movie? It seems that for whatever reason movie posters have always played a key role in the collection of movie memorabilia. So, why is it that most of today’s movie posters aren’t giving us anything worthwhile to hang up on our walls?

I’m not trying to trick you or anything. Take a look at just a few examples that I’ve compiled below. Notice anything?

It’s astounding, I know.

There are so many cliché designs that a lot of the movie posters seem to follow now. Such as the colors via the above atrocities, silhouette figures standing in front of something ominous, or a collage of every single character from the film squeezed into the small rectangular space. Go ahead and do some interweb searching and I’m sure you’ll find plenty more.

Being that I’m a Designer and work full time as a Creative Director, this kind of stuff tends to weigh on my thoughts. This write up isn’t meant to be a rant on movie poster design. I just thought it might be best for me to give a little explanation before going any further. Trust me, there are plenty of movie posters from the past that were equally awful but for different reasons. The advantage we have today is that the internet allows for us to see what actual artists and designers would do if given the chance to design a movie poster for an old film or one that is coming out in a few months.

Without further ado, I give to you an example: the Birds (1963)

Because every poster needs Hitchcock on it.

Now I’m not looking to point out faults in design. No, what I want to ask is this; does this poster make you want to see the movie? Does it evoke a sense of emotion from you? Ultimately, would this be a poster that you would love to have on your wall? It would be awesome to me if it just showcased the woman being attacked by birds with the double exposure effect applied. But for whatever reason, there is a bunch of unnecessary additions around the main art that seems distracting. Am I alone in this?

So what’s better in my opinion? See what artists Laz Marquez and Rob Dorn have to offer up:

Simple yet moving

Damn, those birds are deadly!

I’m not going to give a creative brief or critique on these. I just thought that if I had to pick a movie poster of the Birds to put on my wall, it would definitely be one of these two. See, I’m just keeping things simple.

Though I must admit, I’m kinda disappointed that neither of the variants made mention that the movie is in Technicolor.