A Bit of Advice for Designing Your Film’s Poster

filmposters
When dreaming of independent film, filmmakers imagine their poster displayed giant on the side of a building in Times Square. That’s great, but you must also keep in mind all of the places your poster design will display. More often than not, this will be a thumbnail — on imdb, a Netflix listing, a festival program or a blurb online for a press release. Your image will most likely be displayed with other films’ posters and can easily get lost.

The following tips will help your poster design stand out from the crowd.

  1. Try a google image search for movie posters – EVERYONE uses a black or grey-blue background! Unless you have a very graphic image, avoid this and go for clear or unusual colors like bright green or pink.
  2. Color is even more important for horror films — virtually everyone uses red and black. If your horror film will be show at horror festivals, a different color will really stand out
  3. The title of your film should be in a large, clear font that still reads clearly when your poster is shrunk to thumbnail onscreen and 2″ high printed.
  4. Keep your design high-contrast. Monochromatic shades can be lovely, but your poster will look like a blob when shrunk down.
  5. Avoid using a white or very light background unless you have a dark border at the outside edge — these images get lost when printed on a white background in a festival program.
  6. Dark borders set in from a white band will not look right when displayed on a white background with other posters – the white will blend into the background and your image will look smaller than the others
  7. Ensure your design prints clearly in both B/W and color.
  8. If you have an image behind your title text, check how it views when shrunk and how it prints to ensure it remains easily legible
  9. Pick simpler, clearer images and stick to just one or two.
  10. Pick a font and stick with it — use no more than two different fonts on your design
  11. Your poster should be in portrait orientation. IMDB and film festival programs will often size all of the poster images to the same width for consistency. If your poster is in landscape, you’ll wind up with a much smaller image than everyone else
  12. The main title and image of your poster should show clearly if your vertical poster is clipped to an instagram square (keep them in the center)
  13. Make sure you have a good selection of graphic files to send to a film festival — you want one that is a clear PNG for printing and that looks nice when printed at 24″x36″ and at 8 1/2″x11″. You also want a basic JPG that looks clear when shrunk to about 2″ x 1″
  14. All your laurels are awesome!  Congratulations!  Display them proudly on your full-size poster, but leave them off your small size, since they will all blur together and look absolutely awful.
  15. In the above selection of posters for current films, the best of the bunch is clearly The Heat — the red color stands out, the film title is obvious even at that size and the clean graphics look fine when shrunk down. The Way, Way Back is a lovely color, but the title is illegible unless blown up much larger.

Here are more examples of good poster designs that are guaranteed to stand out!
filmposters2

Looking for more advice?

14 Tips to Find the Right Festival For Your Indie Film
A bit of advice for your Film Festival experience
12 Tips for your Film Festival Submission
Top 5 Questions any filmmaker should be prepared to answer

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