Movie posters for minimalists

Flickr user Graphic Nothing has a delightful set of "Movie Posters for Minimalists" that contain the minimum visual information necessary to convey a sense of the film. I have a feeling that a lot of these would work better for people who've already seen the movies, rather than as enticement to go to the cinema in the first place, but I'm still very pleased by them.

Movie Posters for Minimalists (via Wonderland)

Previously:

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Art and Design • Copyfight • Funny • Happy Mutants • maker • movies

More at Boing Boing

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Hackers prepare for first "national holiday" in their honor

Anonymous

I thought it was an interesting, if not altogether successful, exercise. Some of the posters worked very well.
Anonymous

Love these minimal poster trend… very cool. Here are some more nice ones.. including downloadable PDfs
http://www.chungkong.nl/minimal-poster-project/
Anonymous

yeah, thumbs down on the forced circle motif.

“contain the minimum visual information necessary to convey a sense of the film”

all the best movie previews give you nothing. i already like movies. people who like movies don’t need to be enticed to go to the theatre.
Matt Deckard

Sorry, Graphic Nothing, I did not read your introduction. Now that I have, it makes more sense, and I take back what I said. I thought you were going for something like the Olly Moss ones that Agies linked.
CANTFIGHTTHEDITE

I cracked a smile at the Pulp Fiction poster, which would make it my fav. Obscure enough to make me think about it, followed by the hilariousness that I had to think about it. Well done.

And losing, no loosing.
pjcamp

The Lucas one works for me.

Big fat zero.
NidSquid

@Graphic Nothing: I really liked your posters – I thought they were very creative.
Anonymous

I liked the annie hall one.
Graphic Nothing

Thanks for the comments.

My own thoughts echo those of Anonymous above, which is that it was an interesting exercise to do, rather than a successful one. Some work, some don’t. I’m rather fond of the Ferris & Shining, but if I’d known they were going to be viewed so much I would have gave them all more of my time.

@ Yhancik – not minimalism itself, more someone in particular on Flickr / FFFound who has made a career out of a circle in the middle of everything.
The Unusual Suspect

They remind me of Penguin paperback covers of the ’60s and ’70s.

Graphic Nothing, I consider that a complement and I hope you do too.
skatanic

Everyone should definitely check out film the blanks. The guy who runs that site has been doing something very similar to this with movie posters since like March of last year. He has well over a hundred movie posters.
Chrispiest

Ok, maybe I’m “looking too hard” but someone please explain the Star Wars one. I’m a huge fan still can only see a circle and triangle.
Zergonapal

The Stars Wars one is pretty clever, but only if you know the movie already.
The rest on them, even if you are familiar with the film, fail absolutely.
Brainspore

I’m glad people can discuss these things more civilly when they know the artist is present.

@ Chrispiest: Think of what space-based objects in that film were shaped like a circle and a triangle.
The Unusual Suspect

“I’m a huge fan still can only see a circle and triangle.”

Death Star + other ship, whatever it was called.

(I’m a Trekkie.)
Chrispiest

Ok, thanks. I thought Death Star at first, but then someone in a different board said “Darth Vader” and it totally threw me off.
Anonymous

@zergonapal

Yup, looks like they got lucky on the Star Wars one. The rest are pretty rubbish.
mype4nut

The continuing circle motif throughout the series seems forced. I like The Shining though, because that carpet is one of my favourite things about the movie.
Milena

The one for Clockwork Orange works for me.
Anonymous

star wars, clockwork orange are fine. if you removed the circle, the planet of the apes on is pretty good.
whisper dog

Agree with #1, a lot of them fail. 2001 with flowers? At least I got most of them except Ferris Bueller – I have no clue what that’s about. Does anyone know what they were going for there? Anyone?
Browser

These are pretty interesting, though most of the references are quite subtle even if you’ve seen the film.

@WhisperDog: When Dave is unplugging HAL’s memory modules, HAL starts singing “Daisy Bell”, the first song he was taught by his instructor.
whisper dog

@Browser – thanks, I understood the reference, I just thought it was so tenuous as to be pointless.
Anonymous

Hey! Cool stuff :) I also did a bunch of minimalistic alternative movie posters. Check them out: http://stuff24.de/blog/10-minimalistic-alternative-movie-poster/ Feel free to comment!
Matt Deckard

@Whisper Dog

The Bueller one is a reference to the montage where they’re all at the Art Institute with the instrumental version of The Smith’s “Please Please Please Let Me Get What I Want” playing. Cameron is staring at the Monet painting and the camera zooms in alternately on the painting and on his eye.

Like most of the others, the reference is intentionally tenuous and obscure, and I agree that it’s pretty stupid. I don’t think this guy knows what “minimalist” means.
Matt Deckard

Okay, before someone corrects me, I think the painting was a Seurat, not a Monet.
Steve Schnier

The purpose of a movie poster is to get the viewer excited to see the film. Whether these posters are clever or not (I liked the Star Wars one), none of them would make me want to see the movie they represent.

I’d give them two thumbs down.
karmacomedian

I enjoyed them, nice work. i agree with unusual, they did seem like old penguin covers.
I dug ferris and the shining…
Yhancik

I found the Star Wars, Shining and Pulp Fiction ones to be quite brilliant (the other ones not so much).

But you totally lost me at “a sarcastic take on a certain sort of supposedly high brow intellectual graphic design”.

I don’t get it. Are we mocking minimalism here because it’s “supposedly high brow” ?
Agies

I much prefer Olly Moss’ Eight Films in Black and Red.
Anonymous

To number 6 – I think it’s fine for 2001. If you’ve ever seen the movie, it works. HAL dies singing the song DAISY, hence the photo of daisies. Not too bad if you actually know how to put two and two together.
Anonymous

LOVED the Blade Runner one.
Graphic Nothing

Jeez, I do wish graphic designers would chill out a bit.

Look, there was no ‘purpose’ for the posters, just a pointless dumb exercise for my own amusement in taking a film I like and forcing it into a stupid strict design format. This and the fact that unless you have seen the film they won’t make much sense is explained in the introduction.

They are not meant to make anyone want to watch the film, not meant to be clever, and meant to be tenuous and obscure. They are a sarcastic take on a certain sort of supposedly high brow intellectual graphic design. If you like them great, but I won’t be loosing sleep over it if you don’t.

And yes Matt Deckard I DO understand what minimal means, but thank you for your patronizing concern never-the-less.

love

Graphic Nothing…
coop

@#11 Graphic Nothing

You don’t think that anyone actually read the words on the left on your flikr page do you?

For those too distracted by the bright/shiny on the right, here’s the “artist’s statement”.

This is my not too serious minimalist poster series for cult films.

The vague rules were a circle, lowercase text & one or two images (not from the film) that relate to something in the film (which will not probably make sense unless you’ve seen the film!)

OK, now, go and look at the posters, and enjoy (or not), but go informed!

coop

I gotta get back to work…