As I was reading through the chapters, I stumbled upon the artwork of Saul Bass. The book describes his work as "reducing his designs to a single dominant image," yet what I get from it is more than just simplicity in a dominant figure (Meggs 395). Here are the examples for his logo and titles for a drug addiction film titled "The Man with the Golden Arm."
For a logo and film titles, these designs look more ambiguous and abstract than simple, even for a film. This caught my attention as soon as I saw these pictures, putting me in a deep trance, thinking about what the film would be about or consist of, excluding the cast and producers mentioned in the titles and logo. Now, if this was to be posted outside of a local movie theater without a commercial with its name, it might be a hit or miss with those passing by the poster. People either might be intrigued because of it's design or they could just walk away, not grabbing anyone's attention due to it lacking "flashiness" or a fan base. The book even mentions that motion pictures utilized "traditional portraits of actors and actresses in promoting films and mediocre and garish typography for film title" back then, which ironically, is used today in the poster designs of current and future films being shown at movie theaters. Whether it be the cost, the time, promotion effectiveness, this would be very interesting to see in the present day.
Now, I did mention briefly how the present designs for movie posters are no different than how they were back in the 1960's and before. Let's look at some movies that are out in theaters currently and/or will be showing.
Yes, these are TOTALLY different from Bass' work, but they do follow along the lines of the post designs motion pictures consisted of back in the 1960's and before, add in a couple more actors/actresses with a matching setting/theme in the background and voila! In my honest opinion, Bass' design is original, but would be obsolete and not as marketable in today's society due to what's technologically available to the market. A successful advertising campaign will help bring in money for the producers, directors, everyone involved with the movie, and hopefully have the viewers leaving the theaters saying the movie was worth their money and that the poster design looks "cool." Ambiguity and simplicity does have its market, but I'm not too sure if it would do well in the present day entertainment industry where people want 3D and high definition graphics (with some exceptions of course), with the addition of profit-margin. In the end, I'm still interested in giving "The Man with the Golden Arm" a chance to watch just because of the film poster's ambiguity, as well as Frank Sinatra being in it.
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