The movie The Birds is one that is easily recognizable as one of Alfred Hitchcock’s great horror films. Through the use of Simplicity and the Figure/Ground Gestalt Principles, the designer of this poster is able to convey several messages about the film while creating a poster that pops out to the audience.
The simplistic style of this poster reinforces what is important: the movie. The actors’ names are not a large focus for the design and the production information is so small that it is barely readable. The poster emphasizes the well-known director, Alfred Hitchcock, the title and the subject of the film. The plain red background makes the feather pop and the black, all caps, sans serif typeface make a bold statement about the film. The red may also reinforce the idea of blood’s role in the film. The use of a singular white feather indicates the importance of birds in the film and reinforces the title. The fact that the feather is not perfect indicates that this is not a film about the birds you’d find in Snow White and sing with.
The imperfectness of the feather is where the Figure/Ground Principle comes into play. The title of the film mimics the breaking edges of the feather, yet it is still readable.
Overall, I think this design is so simple that it’s extremely effective in conveying the general storyline of the film. And it would make a great door poster.
Bon jour, mon Amy!
ReplyDeleteGreat job on this post. One linguistic bugaboo: rather than use simplistic, which has a connotation of being unsophisticated, you can use "simple" and have the same effect. Again, that's my subjective view on the language, but wanted to pass it along and spread the gospel.
Cheers,
paul
Also, kudos on recognizing ways in which more than one principle come together in concert to pull off a design!
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