Double exposure is a powerful tool in visual storytelling. Using layers of shape and imagery, it can produce striking posters that can catch a viewer’s eye and encourage them to look twice. It can be bold or subtle and the atmosphere it creates is often highly emotive. It can also be an effective way of linking narrative elements – characters or places – whetting an audience’s appetite for the film to come. 

In this article, I explore the exciting and different ways double exposure can be used in poster design to set the scene, establish mood and relationships – and ultimately tell a film’s story.

Move Closer 

What’s closer than being right next to each other? Double exposure is perfect for conveying an emotional connection between characters by literally stacking their images on top of each other. The crossover between the characters suggests an intertwining of feelings and the intensity of a fraught romance like Ammonite.

Poster design by Legion Creative
Poster design by Chargefield and John Godfrey

Subliminal Messages

A double exposure poster can also be a striking way to depict a fractured sense of self. These posters tend to put the imagery together in a more distorted way – for instance, in the poster for Martha Marcy May Marlene the configuration of the different images used create an odd shape. The lack of harmony in the distortion also emphasises a surreal quality and feels uncomfortable.

Poster design by Empire Design
Poster design by The Robot Eye

Under Threat

Double exposure can impart a ghostly quality that helps us to get into the shoes of characters that feel menaced or in peril. The threat can be external like the zombies in Cargo or more abstract and in-the-mind as in ‘Rebecca’ but the sense of foreboding that we feel is very real.

Poster design by Intermission Film

People and Places

This technique can also be used to show the importance of place in the narrative.  In these stories, the setting is another character impacting and influencing the human players – which can be represented by them appearing as an atmospheric layer of imagery. In the poster for If Beale Street Could Talk, the New York City neighbourhood where the characters live in fills up every part of them – highlighting the impact it has on their lives. 

Poster design by GRAVILLIS

A Lot on my Mind

A great protagonist has a lot going on internally and double exposure can really show what’s happening below the surface. A popular way to show this is with a headshot of the character with the double exposure element adding their fears, challenges or goals overlaying their head suggesting what they are thinking about. This can work for both a bright and optimistic tone like that of A Wrinkle in Time and also much darker or more mysterious fare.

Poster design by LA

Echoes of the Past

The eerie, dreamlike impression that double exposure can leave is perfect for a character haunted by their memories. The poster for Rememory is full of the creepy atmosphere of the scene of an accident but it can be equally compelling to show people troubled by those from their past.

Poster design by Brandon Kidwell
Poster design by Intermission Film

So those are just a few of the ways I’ve seen double exposure supporting the narrative of film posters. And I love the range it has and the way it can bring depth and impact to even the most simple concepts. I’ve definitely seen more and more of this style in film posters over the years and – especially with the rise of alternative official posters as well as fan-made AMPs – I don’t think it’s going away any time soon.

How do you feel about double exposure in film posters? Striking and beautiful or a bit too messy for your liking? Any great examples I’ve missed off? Tell me what you think in the comments!

For poster and graphic design services for your latest TV or film project, I’d love to hear all about it. Drop me a line anytime at adam@strelka.co.uk.