Design Inspiration: Typography in Movie Posters

By Steven Snell | Published July 22nd, 2009 in Inspiration

Movie posters can be an excellent source of design inspiration. Here we will feature posters that have excellent use of typography and text effects. For more typographic inspiration, see TypeInspire.

Sex and the City

Sex and the City

Taken

Taken

Burn After Reading

Burn After Reading

The Notorious Bettie Page

The Notorious Bettie Page

Gladiator

Gladiator

West Side Story

West Side Story

West Side Story

West Side Story

Sorority Row

Sorority Row

2012

2012

Fast & Furious 4

Fast and Furious 4

The Limits of Control

The Limits of Control

Obsessed

Obsessed

Pulp Fiction

Pulp Fiction

12 Rounds

12 Rounds

The Godfather

The Godfather

Milk

Milk

The Departed

The Departed

Juno

Juno

Ocean’s Eleven

Ocean's Eleven

Ocean’s Twelve

Ocean's Twelve

My Bloody Valentine 3D

My Bloody Valentine 3D

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels

Max Payne

Max Payne

Gomorra

Gomorra

For more design inspiration, please see:


16 Comments
  1. xozan on July 22nd, 2009

    The Godfather poster is awesome!

  2. Zach on July 23rd, 2009

    Nice article! Featured at The Zach Krasner Times in today’s issue…

  3. Dzinepress on July 23rd, 2009

    awesome stuff.

  4. Victoria Web on July 23rd, 2009

    There is a definite formula to film posters, all have a large element of typography. My favourite from this collection are “juno” & “lock stock”

  5. BebopDesigner on July 23rd, 2009

    Brilliant collection! By the way Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels is my favourite film. Thanks for Sharing.

  6. [...] Design Inspiration: Typography in Movie Posters [...]

  7. Patric Seng on July 23rd, 2009

    Great Collections! Love them :)

  8. Analise Smith on July 24th, 2009

    I think the Taken poster could have been done better, the way it is formatted makes you read it as one long run on sentence, they could have easily manipulated the text to make it read as intended. For example an increase in leading after the “are” to imply a pause, etc.

  9. [...] Design Inspiration: Typography in Movie Posters Submitted by Webmasterish [...]

  10. Joshua on July 25th, 2009

    While the imagery within the text on Fast and Furious worked quite well (great typography before the imagery as well), I think that it was a bit overdone on The Departed. It actually took me a second to figure out what it said until I read the movie title in plain text in the lower right of the poster.

  11. web design gold coast on July 27th, 2009

    Excellent post. Big fan of movie posters and this selection is fantastic.

  12. Sam on July 28th, 2009

    Great examples, I love the typeface used in Johnny Deeps new film, Public Enemies, very New Deal-era America.

  13. [...] este post podrán ver aquellos carteles que poseen un excelente uso de la tipografía como [...]

  14. andimazlan on May 31st, 2010

    Nice post. But I think ‘Theta PI’ and ‘Pulp Fiction’ was so ordinary. Shouldn’t be in the list.

  15. lv on August 9th, 2010

    I love the typeface used in Johnny Deeps new film, Public Enemies, very New Deal-era America.