Rejected poster art for Broadway revival of "La Cage aux Folles"

The New York Times has great audio/visual presentations. This one, featuring narration by Drew Hodges of the advertising agency Spotco, is especially good. Hodges comments on the rejected poster art for for the Broadway revival of La Cage aux Folles.

On Dinosaurs and Robots, Mister Jalopy writes:

The far lower right is the final decision and I understand their requirement of flexibility in being able to use the image in many sizes and formats but, my goodness, there were some beautiful rejects. I like the Liquid Sky-style poster in the bottom row, second from the left. The money spent on this many iterations is stunning. Big business!

Ad Evolution: 'La Cage aux Folles'

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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gobo

Well obviously none of these are any good. There’s not enough starbursts!
Antinous / Moderator

It’s odd that the one that was chosen seems to least convey the fact that the characters are in fact gentlemen.
- Sekino
  
  I was thinking the exact same thing. The one with the false lashes/moustache is closest to the mark, but I don’t really feel any of them really capture the true essence of the story. If I wasn’t already familiar with it, I would think it’s about Vegas showgirls…
hobomike

“The money spent on this many iterations is stunning. Big business!”

No kidding! One of the ironies of the digital revolution is that nowadays we have clients who can’t imagine anything and need to see things almost in it’s final form. Gone are the days of marker-comps. So designers spend countless hours building things in photochop that will most likely never be seen, primarily because of NDAs.
Suburbancowboy

These are really great. I especially love the first one with the legs. A classic pinup look.
- dm10003
  
  NEWS TO NON-DESIGNERS: ALTERNATE VERSIONS ARE AS OLD AS THE HILLS.
  
  there’s absolutely nothing new about trying various approaches. do you think only one try is ever attempted? you’re all idiots then. btw you’re looking at probably 5% of what happened inside the studio before the client even sees these, and each approach has been revised countless times itself. advertising is famous for this, but any architect will tell you horror stories too.
  
  to #3, homages and inspirations are ok if they get away with it and avoid confusion. the A’s in the second-to-last one are a direct steal from Letraset’s Quicksilver typeface that i designed in 1976, but that doesn’t make it copyright infringement.
  
  NEWSFLASH #2: the “Think Different” slogan was proposed to and rejected by IBM before it was used for Apple.
Anonymous

They are all so beautiful, but I feel like they chose the most boring one! Plus, it looks too much like the ideas behind the Chicago poster.

http://i200.photobucket.com/albums/aa231/jennifercmurphy/Chicago-Poster-C10299307.jpg
blueelm

My favorite is the one with the false eyelashes, mustache, and nostalgic text. Cute! But I can see how they might not have thought it would be “sexy’ enough.
Boba Fett Diop

I think the logo should be bigger.
- Teller
  
  Ain’t that the truth.
woid

I would have rejected a couple of them myself… but the one they picked is dreadful. It looks like a movie poster. The big bold caps make it look like a teaser for an action picture. I wonder how many people will misread the “LA” as “L.A.” and think it says “L.A. CAGE”. Or maybe the title is “L.A.” and it stars Nic Cage?

The other typographical one is way better and though not perfect a great first draft. Nice fonts, witty graphics of the eyelashes & mustache, actually tells you this is something different from the Women In Cages imagery of the winner. If I were the annoying client I’d suggest a few changes (which I need you to get to me by 11 tonight) and pick this one. Not that anyone asked me.
- blueelm
  
  I would have thought it was L.A Cage, and assumed it was a film about showgirls from the poster.
  
  I only just barely know the story, having seen the older film of it, but it’s not what would have popped into my mind from seeing the poster.
  
  I wouldn’t have figured from a quick glance that they are men, or that it is not set in LA. Like L.A. Heat or something which I think sounds like something that was a movie I probably never watched.