Poster Book Design

The Independent Movie Poster book, is a documentation of movie posters and ad campaigns used for independent movies. As many of these movies were low budget, artistic and experimental the posters representing them usually reflected these points and as a result became iconic. The cover uses one of the most iconic film under the independent film genre, Pulp fiction, one that is easily recognisable (This makes the cover approachable, using imagery that aims directly at the target audience, in this example would be film fans and fans of independent cinema).

The layout of the book allows the content room on the page which can be used for type but also to bring the images out better. The book changes layouts on most pages to accommodate the different shapes and sizes of the images, yet similarities continue throughout the book in that a large single image would get a full page and on the same spread there would be two smaller images, this keeps the book looking clean and legible as the page with the two images on would be where the description for the image on the facing page, to keep the larger image pages clear and simple. The text used on the pages alongside the imagery is around 8 point, this keeps all focus on the imagery, something which is a reoccurring theme throughout these types of books.

The way in which the book presents larger images and smaller images to the shape of the books is very spatially aware, leaving a good amount of white space on each page, not to just be filled with text but to bring out the images colours and make the image clearer so it is more striking on the page. 

Chinese Propaganda posters by Taschen Portfolio is a documentation of communist propaganda in china from the 1930's onwards, documenting some modern examples used up to the early 2000's, the book follows the same structure as 'the independent movie poster book' utilising blank space and arranging the images into large, medium and small to keep a structure to the book throughout. The cover used is a great example of the art work that is featured in the content, it is bright and bold and it shows the outlandish techniques and styles used by the communist government of China throughout the 21st century, it is relevant, eye catching and over the top, to keep with the styles of the book itself.

Off the wall; Psychedelic rock posters from San Francisco, a documentation of Rock posters from the late 60's to the late 70's at the height of the psychedelic movement. All the posters in this book were hand produced, through many different processes, each poster has its own unique detail and are all colourful bright and don't follow many rules. The book shows one poster per page to keep the images enlarged and clear it includes a foreword about the time and the posters themselves. The book choses to have the posters scanned in and not photographed this makes the images clearer and allows the images to all have that similarity in that they are clean scans of clean posters rather than numerous photographs of the posters with different back grounds and different lighting.

The paper changes a number of times throughout the book from a regular white gloss paper to a soft pink gloss paper (Which holds the foreword on it (Above) to then a silver gloss paper which the images are shown on, this to give the effect of the theme, psychedelic, it makes the page very reflective and the light that is hitting the page brings out the brightly coloured posters and it can change depending on the angle of the book to a light source this gives it a USP (Unique selling point) it is an art book about art, the only issue is the white type, set on the silver paper next to very brightly coloured images, often gets lost on the page and can be unreadable at times.

This collection of posters from Britain between 1945 and 1975 shows British culture through posters for the 30 year period following world war 2, all are public information posters by the government and is an insight into the policies and priorities of successive postwar governments, covering everything from the jobs people did, the food they ate, the amount of alcohol they drank and cigarettes they smoked to the wearing of motorcycle helmets and seat belts, road safety for children and Keep Britain Tidy campaigns. The book is a lot cleaner and well presented in comparison to the other poster books looked at. The book, which is printed with help from the national archives, gives each poster its own two page spread, one side for the images the other for a small paragraph, this gives all the attention to the imagery yet also feeds the reader small doses of information, a strong technique to keep the book about the art yet give a brief summary of the history to go with it.