History of Film Posters

The first movie poster designed to promote a film was L'Arroseur arrosé, after movies went from simply moving pictures to a storytelling medium. Because of this, films became a lot more popular throughout the U.S and Europe. As a result of this, the films soon required advertising to entice people to the shows and inform them of when and where they would be showing. Films were shown at amusement parks, fairs and music halls, as well as eventually being shown at makeshift theaters called nickelodeons. During this time, the standard poster design and size was inspired by Vaudeville (carnival) poster designs.

In December 1908 Thomas Edison joined together the seven major film studios into the Motion Picture Patents Company to help regulate film production and distribution. The first standard film poster size is set at 27" x 41". The posters they produced were kept very under wraps which of course let to independent printers making much more graphic versions for a much cheaper price.

In the early 1910s, the audiences started to demand to know who the actors of the films were, studios kept trying to keep this a secret for a while, in the end embraced the actors popularity , and with this, the design of the posters had to be changed, to add the film star names and highlighting their appearance much more than the film itself. At the same time, the make shift theaters, nickelodeons were also being replaced by purpose built theaters allowing for posters to be present in a better space, with this and the appearance of billboards being put into use, posters became a lot more important.

Edison's company was soon dissolved by a court decision, after deciding it was no longer necessary. The printers became immediately free from design restrictions and were able to produce a much higher quality of designs.

In 1927, one of the first films to use sound was "The Jazz Singer". This was a silent movie which featured jazz songs and even a few lings by Al Jolson and so the movie poster became iconic.


In the years ahead between 1930 and 1939, movie posters reflected the "Art Deco" fad which included geometric shapes and bold colours. The main change about the designs at this time was the decreasing of details in the imagery, instead was replaced by white spaces. Even with the great depression, more people than ever before went to theater as a means of escape.

In 1939 magazines began printing colour photographs of stars, and so posters began using tinted photographs and were made so that cars could see them clearly from far away.

In the 1960s film posters continued to mirror the fashion of that earer, and continued to replace artwork with photographs, with the content of the designs changed to match the film.

More recently, poster designs have been simplifying and removing all the unnecessary imagery around the poster, moving the focus onto one specific image. Minimalism seems to be continuing the trend through the 20th Century and continues today, most seen in companies like Apple, and vairous graphic designers.

It is plain to see the transition of film poster designs. They began as art pieces to simply promote the film and the location of the showing. It continued to evolve with the needs and wants of the public with adding the names of actors/actresses that appear in the films, which became more important than the film title it self. The introduction of photographs replaced the art work and became, photographs and typography elements. Finally, with the art deco earer, poster designs became a lot more subtle and simpler, with the use of straight lines and graphical shapes. Today it is a simpler poster designs with a graphic accompanied with type.