If you have been following my previous few entries in this series, you will know that I have been left than satisfied with the amount of great poster designs that were on display in the mid-1980′s.

Then 1986 comes along, and there is quite a number of great poster designs to be found in the Archives of Old.

Below is my assessment of those that are worth mentioning and giving 2 cents about….

Dream Lover

I’m digging the strong verticle rip down the layout with the bold use of silhouette to get the duality of the character in the movie.  Can you say “Psycho”?  Just creative enough to stand out and send a visual message as to the nature of the plot. I like the really fat Bodoni Poster font for the title treatment that pairs well with the smaller sans-serif text of the sub-copy. The contrasting white and black background colors also help to make this poster standout to the passerby.

American Anthem

While we are on the topic of “rips” in layout, this poster (like the previous one) is another good example of dissecting the visual plane of the layout.  This very colorful midsection really pops against the drab gray bottom half.  It really helps to create a strong gridline for the layout.  The way the title treatment, supporting copy and credits adhere to this vertical also contribute to making this a great poster design.  Okay… you ladies out there can stop staring and move onto the next one…

Soul Man

I think why I like this poster so much is for the very basic, yet creative way the title treatment is handled.  The use of postive and negative space in the dead center of the layout immediate convey what this movie is about.  I just love typographic solutions to convey a message.  The very, othewise, symmetrical layout is nicely managed by the inclusion of the very assymetrical placement of the actor leaning into the edge of the page.  Nice….

Platoon

Now while the main version of this movie’s poster was nice, I found this alternative version to be even more noteworthy.

The bold, big use of flat color, simple imagery and almost hand-cut rendering of the artwork give this poster some character.  Not to mention the creative use of imagery in the title treatment, helping to create a unique logotype for this movie is worth giving praise to…

About Last Night

While there may some mild value issues with text copy (which may be due to the digital copy of this poster I tracked down), I love the simple use of a field of text copy and color to flesh out the movie’s title.  The strong horizontal line breaking up the actors and the title help give the very busy top half a more calmer visual bottom this layout, which allows the eye to rest.

Poltergeist 2

Dang… I just love negative space.  It steers the eye to focus on a small area of the page and really helps drive the layout.  Here, the simple image being surrounded by dense black is just awesome… Enough said!

Vamp

I don’t care whether you agree or not that Grace Jones should ever have been captured in front of a camera acting or not, you can’t deny the visual power of the poster.  The simple, yet genius execution of the title treatment and imagery, along with a strong off-axis tilt make the layout very strong.

Pretty in Pink

Yes, one of the hallmark movies of this decade also had a great poster to boot!  The fantastic use of monotone photo with that strong color of pink in all the right places.  Great typeface for the title and a great decision on its placement. Beautiful!

Torment

I am going to end this entry with the strongest of the batch.  Some of the same design principles from the previous poster are just as applicable here… the monotone, high contrast of the photo, the great use of selective color, and a pulp-fiction look to the poster.  But what I love is the very unconventional design of the title treatment that plays off of the background image. Fun, inventive, and brilliant! Hitchcock would have been proud…