Demystifying Graphic Design: How Posters Work
Ellen Lupton · Author and educator, MICA
A museum curator breaks down six repeatable design moves behind iconic movie posters
What you will learn
- How to build a poster around a single dramatic moment rather than a whole story
- Using diagonals to create motion, depth, and a path for the eye to follow
- Simplifying objects into stark, recognisable icons while keeping an emotional hook
- Creating depth on a flat surface through overlap and transparency
- Directing the viewer's focus with light, contrast, and a single anchor point
Standout ideas
- The 'assault the surface' technique of physically or digitally distressing a poster (tearing, burning, smudging) to add a narrative of its own making
- Choosing the point of highest dramatic energy in a story, rather than its beginning or resolution, as the single image for a poster
- Using diagonal composition instead of straight lines to inject motion and depth into an otherwise static 2D layout
Best for: Beginner and intermediate designers, illustrators, and design enthusiasts who want a structured way to analyse and create poster compositions.
Ellen Lupton grounds abstract design principles in dozens of real historical and contemporary posters from the Cooper Hewitt collection, making the six 'moves' concrete and memorable rather than generic design-theory. The hands-on movie poster assignment gives learners a direct way to apply what they see, though at just over an hour the course covers breadth over depth and assumes learners already have basic image-editing skills to execute the final project. It works better as a way of training the eye than as a step-by-step software tutorial.