Down in front! What movie poster design can teach web designers (2025)

What do you see when you look at a movie poster? Is it simply advertising to promote a movie or a piece of artwork you’d potentially hang on your wall at home or in an office?

The best film posters are more than promotional materials. They’re a fusion of art and marketing crafted to convey the essence of a film and captivate a potential audience. The art of movie poster design is all about telling memorable stories.

Web designers can draw inspiration from movie poster design to engage audiences, tell incredible stories, and help a brand, business, product, or service create a lasting impression. I love movies and their posters almost as much as designing websites. Let’s explore the connections between these two mediums and discuss how poster design principles add energy and excitement to product and website designs.

Movie posters pack a punch

Great movie posters pack a visual punch. They’re designed to attract attention and encourage audiences to learn more about the films they promote.

From the eerie silhouette on Rosemary’s Baby (1968) to the wall-breaking composition of A Clockwork Orange (1973), posters can excite and intrigue at a glance. Their power comes from an ability to condense complex narratives into eye-catching visuals. Focusing on impact and efficiency can also help product and website designers to create more impactful and memorable designs.

Movie poster typography takes center stage

Typography conveys tone, from the hand-drawn lettering on Saul Bass’s poster for Vertigo (1958) to the vintage paperback type on Pulp Fiction (1994.)

The typography on movie posters is frequently daring and designed to leave lasting impressions. Think of the skyline-shaped word mark from Manhattan or the dog tags in the Platoon title. This creative approach can translate to a website’s headings and banners. Typography is more than text and should be a core ingredient defining a website’s tone, just like a film poster’s branding.

The power of imagery in movie poster design

Imagery attracts attention and is often the most striking aspect of a movie poster, whether it’s a close-up of the lead character from The Social Network (2010) or the abstract symbolism of Nymphomaniac (2013).

Visuals communicate key themes, like the lineup of The Usual Suspects or Ghostbusters’ graphic design. Product and website designers can adapt this approach by including imagery that introduces a product or service, reflects a business’s brand values, and tells stories about it. By thinking of visuals as storytellers rather than fillers, websites can achieve a cinematic quality that draws people in and keeps them engaged.

Lean into color

Movie posters use color to communicate concepts, set the mood, and support the narrative, from Saul Bass’s much-copied Anatomy of a Murder (1959) to The Godfather (1972), which also uses an iconic movie logo.

The icy blues of Frozen (2013) suggest adventurous fantasy, while the black, red, and yellow of Jurassic Park (1993) add to the anticipation. Borrowing from these dramatic palettes can create strong emotional connections for websites. For example, a brand might use a monochromatic palette reminiscent of a classic horror movie.

At the same time, a gaming site could adopt high-contrast, neon tones straight out of science fiction films like Tron (1982). When you choose colors with intention, they transform a website into a visual experience.

Lead the viewer’s eye

Movie poster layouts are designed to guide a viewer’s attention toward important content and messaging. They often lead the eye from a focal point to supporting details like taglines or the credits on Back to the Future (1985). Titles dominate, taglines intrigue, visuals create impact, and everything is arranged in a hierarchy. Website designers can deconstruct these techniques and design visually striking layouts that prioritize key information.

Tip: In a recent video, I suggested ways the homeless charity Crisis could use color, graphics, illustrations, and photographs to make their stories more memorable.

Many great movie posters tell stories without words, using colors, layouts, and visuals to communicate themes. Websites can use storytelling to create similar connections with the people using them. For example, a product page can lead people through a narrative, blending copy with visuals to demonstrate the benefits of using an item.

Cinematic transitions, interactive elements, and scrolling effects can make websites feel immersive. By learning from poster designers’ ability to condense narratives and stimulate reactions, web designers can craft engaging and informative experiences that keep people captivated from the title to the end credits.

Movie poster design meets website design

Let’s now walk through a theoretical web design brief, and see if we can use cinema to inspire our choices.

The brief

My client, The Daily Grind, is a coffee company that provides products and services to cafés and coffee shops. The team wants a bold, disruptive design distinct from the brand’s competitors. (Oh, and The Daily Grind isn’t an actual client, but the creative challenges and decisions involved in designing layouts during a project like this are real.)

What the client likes

The Daily Grind team is obsessed with movies, and many conversations inevitably turned to talking about our favorite films. The best movie posters are superb specimens of hierarchical design because they organize elements so audiences can easily spot a film’s title, tagline, and who’s starring. Although the team initially didn’t realize it, our shared love of movies will influence the new design.

Just as movie posters make someone stop and pay attention, the team wants certain pages on The Daily Grind to do the same by letting people know they’ve reached important milestones. They’veidentified pages where a branded experience would benefit their business, including:

What the client doesn’t like

The Daily Grind doesn’t want poster pastiches for its pages. They’re not looking for the close-up face and carefully constructed typographic style of The Social Network. They don’t want to copy the content of a poster like Platoon or the colors, textures, and type from Pulp Fiction. They especially don’t want to see a replica of a poster like Ghostbusters, no matter how much they all loved the movie.

So, it’s critical to remember that being fascinated by movie posters or any other design medium doesn’t mean making facsimiles of them. Instead, we should explore connections, deconstruct techniques, and understand design principles, including balance, contrast, hierarchy, proportions, and scale.

What else they do

Alongside its commercial activities, The Daily Grind raises money to support sustainable coffee growers. The pages explaining what each grower does and inviting donations must be compelling. Faces are often prominent in movie poster design, so I include large portraits that look straight into a viewer’s eyes and demand a reaction.

Posters often use gigantic titles, so I add oversized and center-aligned headlines, which dominate the page and exaggerate the visual hierarchy when combined with a portrait of the grower. Using an accent color lets people know which interactive elements are ready to be used.

Visual hierarchy is as crucial for products and websites as for poster design. It ensures that key information attracts attention and is easily understood. A well-structured hierarchy guides the viewer’s eye through the content by prioritizing elements like headlines, images, and calls to action.

Without a hierarchy, designs might appear cluttered or confusing, reducing their impact. An obvious hierarchy delivers the message clearly and quickly. In this example, the large image and dominant title at the top of the hierarchy convey the page’s purpose, while supporting information becomes progressively smaller.

Posters often use gigantic titles and high contrast between colors, so I oversize and center-align the headlines to exaggerate the visual hierarchy.

Leave your audience wanting more

Movie posters prove that design can be artistic and functional, conveying complex ideas with flair and simplicity. By adopting a few key principles from movie poster design, designers can create products and website designs that captivate people and inspire them to connect with a business or a brand. Those principles are:

Some might see this approach as pushing boundaries. Still, I‘ve spent my career encouraging designers to think beyond conventional approaches to web design so they can create experiences that, like great movies, leave audiences wanting more.

About the Author

Often referred to as one of the pioneers of web design, Andy Clarke has been instrumental in pushing the boundaries of web design and is known for his creative and visually stunning designs. His work has inspired countless designers to explore the full potential of product and website design.

Andy’s written several industry-leading books, including “Transcending CSS,” “Hardboiled Web Design,” and ”Art Direction for the Web.” He’s also worked with businesses of all sizes and industries to achieve their goals through design.