The making of
this year’s best poster
Ellen Lupton, graphic designer and author ofHow Posters Work, on why exactly that
WONDER WOMAN 1984 poster was such a massive hit
PREVIEW
“This green element at the bottom
makes you think of a landscape, behind her
is a sunset, and Wonder Woman is
emerging from the Earth like Gaia.
The sense of her bursting out of that
colour is very much part of the
narrative of the poster — she’s
in the middle of this explosion,
emerging out of
the dawn.”“The Mylar [a type of shiny
plastic polyester film] background
is very artificial. It’s not fire, it’s not a
curtain — it’s a little disco. I’ve never
seen this texture before, it’s very
strange and original. And instead of
giving the title of the movie, it
signifies the ‘W’ through
this crazy rainbow
background.”“There’s no text or logo.
But the logoisthe background
— the W shapes. I think because it’s
early in the promotion, and it’s a
teaser poster, so for now it’s about
creating interest and stirring
controversy and discussion.
Future [posters] will
become more
commercial.”“The colour palette is really
strong, breaking the expectation
of a black-and-white poster.
It’s the rainbow, the full colour
spectrum. It’s definitely saying
that this is a colourful
era and it’s going to be
a colourful movie. That’s
a big message of
the poster.”“Wonder Woman is very static –
but she’s also grounding the whole thing.
All those diagonals point to her, framing
her. It’s very traditional to have the main
figure in the centre. She is the anchor.
In the last movie she had a Greek
gladiator suit, but this one is late
20th century-feeling. She’s
reflecting all the colour
around her.”“A big trend in design in the
last few years is to use gradients
— a very soft transition from one
colour to the next. This isnota
gradient: these colours are very bright,
and they deliberately clash with
each other. It’s quite hard and
geometric — it’s not soft
and gentle wafting
colours.”
WONDER WOMAN 1984IS IN CINEMAS FROM 4 JUNE 2020 WORDS: BEN TRAVIS