- Get inspired by doing whatever sparks your creativity and make sure that your design grabs people’s attention. Focus on showing people what the movie is about and ultimately encourage them to want to watch it
- Movie posters have a huge influence on how movies perform and whether or not they’re a success
- When you’re creating a movie poster design, there are many things that you want to keep in mind to create the best result
A poster is one of the first things that can grab viewer’s attention and, besides teasers and trailers, are one of the main reasons why viewers may decide to see a movie. Although you can have a movie without a poster, and especially start a movie without a poster, if you want success for your film a high-quality movie poster that grabs the viewer’s attention is critical. If you’re new to the graphic design industry and are starting with creating your first movie poster, or if you’re a veteran in the design industry and are stumped on a certain project, this article is for you!
We’ll go over all the critical areas that you want to keep in mind for your next movie poster design and the top tips for creating one that catches the viewer’s eye! Without further ado, here are our top tips for creating a movie poster!
Get Inspired
Before you get started with actually designing, you want to begin with getting inspired. For any design, you need a spark of inspiration to get you excited for the project so it’ll be easier to start designing. Although it’s okay to get inspired by looking at other designs, you want to narrow it down a little more. Look at movie posters, and even go as far as to narrow it down to getting inspired by looking at movie posters in the same category that you’ll be designing.
On the other side, if you get inspired in other ways than looking at designs, there are plenty of other ways to get your creative sparks flying. Sometimes something as a walk outside in nature or scrolling inspirational work on social media is enough to get you feeling motivated or give you ideas. Maybe you’ll find that pulling out the traditional pad and paper and doing some loose sketches is what inspires you. It’ll be different for everyone, but getting inspired is the first step to your movie poster.
Grab Their Attention
You want your movie poster to jump from the wall and stand apart from the crowd. It should spark interest in viewers and get them excited for the movie, grabbing their attention from afar. If you haven’t heard it already, there’s a four-step formula that’s used in successful advertising movie campaigns called AIDA – attention, interest, desire, and action. These are four areas that you’re encouraged to focus on when attempting to get people interested in new movies coming out.
This formula applies equally to designers creating movie posters. The first part of the formula, attention, is where you want to grab passerby’s eyes and attract them to the movie poster. Now it’s important to understand with this part that it isn’t necessary to use flashy graphics. It’s easy for graphic designers to think that the flashier their designs are and the more that they use bright colors or big sentences the more attention it’ll get. But you don’t need to use flashy design to grab people’s attention, most times simple designs will have the same result.
Show, Don’t Tell
The most iconic movie posters have all used the design itself to tell people what the movies are about, not told them. Anyone can put hints with words for what the movie’s about, but to really create a truly amazing movie poster you have to be about to show what the movie’s about without using any words at all. You have to solely rely on visuals to communicate what the movie is about and why viewers should buy it.
The most successful movie posters don’t have blocks of text describing what the movie’s about or the title of the movie taking up the entire movie. They use creative imagery, whether a close-up of the main character or a simple graphic to grab their attention and build anticipation. Remember that you want to give enough information on the poster to give viewers an idea of what the movie’s about, but not enough that’ll it spoil the entire plot.
Make People Want To Watch It
Your poster needs to, ultimately, encourage people to want to watch the movie and have a reason to go watch it. Many modern movie posters will show a scene from the movie that builds tension and mystery. Usually, if the scene builds enough anticipation, it’ll give people a reason to come and see the movie to see what happens. They’ll either want to see what happens to the character in the scene or wonder how the character got there.
Remember that the movie poster is what will be giving people a reason to show up, people a reason to want to watch the movie to start with. They need to feel strongly enough about it that they can’t wait to find out what happens in the film. It’s important that this part of your design is carefully calculated and you’ve put thought into the plot of the movie and what the most thrilling part is.
