Keeping your finger on the pulse of film poster design can be tough – industry trends are constantly evolving and reinventing themselves. So – as we get in gear for 2023, I’ve taken a closer look at the posters for recent and upcoming releases to see what’s hot right now in film marketing.
Neons still rule
In particular, the bubblegum pink featured on the ‘Barbie’ teaser poster and the electric purple shade used for ‘Magic Mike’s Last Dance’. These hues have been very popular in recent years and also seem to transcend genre – for instance as the key colour in the poster for horror film ‘Alone at Night’ and in the title for alt-period drama ‘Emily’.
All washed out
In total contrast to the bright trend, many current posters look like the colour has been drained out of them. This usually reflects heavier subject matter, such as that in ‘Alice, Darling’, ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ and ‘She Said’. With this style, it’s easy to take very different approaches to titles and figures – from colour pops to playing with contrast (or not).
All about that red glow
Red is perennially popular for titles and highlights as it always grabs attention. This year, I’ve been seeing a lot of red glow as a riff on this in titles such as ‘Renfield’, ‘Pearl’ and ‘Daughter’. This technique is fantastic way to create a creepy effect whilst also making a pleasing nod to schlocky B-movie horror.
Epic
After a few years of it feeling like ‘it’s the pictures that got small’, big films are back and they have the posters to match! Whether it’s a figure caught in billowing clouds of smoke in ‘Oppenheimer’, the roster of stars and period setting of ‘Marlowe’ or the nostalgia-fest promised by the reels of film in Spielberg’s ‘The Fabelmans’ – these films all channel a huge spectacle.
Oranges and lemons
Warm colour palettes are popular choice across genres at the moment – including mainstream flicks like horror ‘M3GAN’ and period comedy-drama ‘Babylon’ as well as quirkier choices like ‘When You Finish Saving the World’ and ‘Blaze’.
Fun with graphics
It’s great to see bigger movies making bolder statements and playing around with graphic styles. You’d expect to see that in an animation such as ‘Across the Spider-Verse’ (although it’s no less welcome) but it’s super-fun to see imagery such as ‘Scream 6’’s version of New York and the Saul Bass-inspired poster for ‘Knock at the Cabin’.
And that’s it. I think it’s been a pretty inspiring start to the year for film poster design. What do you make of these trends? Love them? Hate them? Feel like I missed any? Let me know in the comments!
If you have a question or there’s a poster design project you’d like to discuss developing, feel free to drop me a line at adam@strelka.co.uk.
