Influences part 17: poster design

Last week I received a box full of over 500 identical postcards from the printers so that I can promote my graduation film, and as I'm not doing anything else right now (1:30am), this seems like as good a time as any to document some of the film posters that influenced the design decisions behind the aesthetics of my film poster/postcards...
In case you haven't already seen it, below is the poster design for my graduation film: Pigment of Imagination

I had always planned on making my film poster from a drawing or painting that illustrates 'something' about my film, rather than just creating a layout around an existing piece of my film footage... I suppose the original influence for this design decision may have come from Erica's hand-drawn poster for The Gardener, which both I and many others greatly admired.

I have always enjoyed painting, so I wanted to incorporate that into the aesthetics of my poster; and this also linked nicely with my favourite style of film poster - the vintage film posters of the 1940s & 50s, that were painted by hand. Some of my favourite posters in this style include those for The 400 Blows, Vivre Sa Vie, Jules et Jim, and Casablanca:

The third major influence on the design of my poster was the layout of the posters for Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho; but The Trouble With Harry and many other designs from the 50s/60s also greatly influence me.


Other notable influences include the artwork of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec...

And various Eastern European/Russian prints.