Poster Design for a Horror Film
I heard a lot about 'Suspiria'.
Being a horror fan I was utterly excited to read that they would be remaking the cult classic.
As teaser posters & trailer for the new film surfaced online, I decided to research for the old.
Suspiria is a 1977 Italian supernatural horror film directed by Dario Argento, co-written by Argento and Daria Nicolodi, partially based on Thomas De Quincey's 1845 essay Suspiria de Profundis (Sighs from the Depths).
The graphic designer in me was overwhelmed to see the quality of the poster arts for the original.
An exquisite screenprint poster by artist James Rheem Davis, the film's Italian poster, the theatrical onesheet by Kellerman Design, the original Japanese poster and the Japanese VHS artwork are the ones that caught my eye the most. I absolutely loved the Japanese posters with Japanese text on it.
I observed each with the utmost attention to detail.
It was then slowly I planned to make posters for the 2018 remake.
Inspired from the original 1977 film's posters.
So to make a vintage poster specifically from the 70s, I needed to know about the graphic design style of that decade. After going through a few articles I found out use of 'photography becoming more dominant during this period'.
One of the striking features of the 77's Suspiria posters was the various typefaces they used for the movie title.
So to make posters for the new movie, I decided to use my favourite typefaces from the old film, among its other elements.
Lets take a look at the final drafts. (Click on the posters for a better view)
Thanks to bloody-disgusting.com for featuring this project.
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The posters feature all my favourite actors Dakota Johnson, Tilda Swinton, Mia Goth & Chloë Grace Moretz.
Each poster contains stills from the new film's trailer & elements borrowed from the new film's posters. For the latter four, I picked the creepy quotes from the new film's official posters. The quotes aptly match with the mood and tone of the posters I created, making it perfectly haunting and bone chilling.
Poster #1 / After seeing the 1977 Suspiria I understood how colour plays a vital role in the movie. However in an article John Squires from Bloody Disgusting talks about the "lack of Color in the ‘Suspiria’ Remake". But anyway I wanted to add a little colour for one of the posters. So for the first poster I recreated the gorgeous peacock I'm obsessed with, from the old movie.
Poster #2 / Inspired from the film's Italian poster. Particularly the typography and the Yellow. Even the still. The old movie has a poster with the similar scene, where maggots are crawling out of the protagonist's face. Special mention for the title typeface, it's the same that appears on the starting credits of the 77's film.
Poster #3 / I got chills while I was working on this one. It's actually two different stills stitched together. It was a wild idea, but really really happy with how it looks.
Poster #4 / Inspired from the original Japanese poster. Used the Japanese typeface from the original.
Poster #5 / Inspired from film's Japanese VHS artwork. Very simple and minimal. Very Japanese.
Poster #6 / I would like to take some credit here. I chose this creepy still from the new film's trailer. This typeface from the 77's film (mostly used) sits perfectly above the scene, and then rest of the details above like a trail. And the quote fits gold.
PS: Some of these posters contain subtle textures, (paper folds, grunge, book edge etc) for an old vintage look.
There's this German poster I designed, exclusively for filmstarts.de who published an article about this project. Read the beautiful article by Daniel FABIAN and check out the German poster through the link below:
As usual, this German poster for the remake borrows elements from the German art for the original 1977 film. The twigs that appear at the bottom of the poster, are taken from the 40th Anniversary Blu-ray art of the original Suspiria.
Hope you enjoyed this segement.
