Johnny Cash, Posters and Shepard Fairey
by Bennett Holzworth, (12 comments)
When I saw the trailer for “Walk The Line” my heart leapt at the thought of a movie based on the life of Johnny Cash. This may be a bit dramatic, but Johnny Cash’s music has been consistent in my life since I was a child. Likes and dislikes came and went, but my enjoyment of Mr. Cash has remained constant. I don’t know much about Johnny personally, but I look forward to seeing how Hollywood will portray him. Hopefully it will be on par with The Doors and Ray.
When I went online to find out more about the film, I couldn’t believe my eyes. A movie poster that didn’t have a single photo or montage. It is refreshing to actually see a well designed poster amongst the sea of mediocrity that is the Hollywood movie poster. The design is very appropriate considering the rich poster history of Nashville and country music from the likes of Hatch Show Print and many others. Will this poster make it to the theaters or will there end up being an alternate compromised version? If it does survive the box office I have little hope that this graphic will make it to Blockbuster. Every decent movie graphic eventually gets watered down by the time it hits video, or at best when the original special packaging is sold out and the cheaper version hits the market.
Who better to design a poster so different than the rest of the industry than the underground and subversive Shepard Fairey?
Ok, so I have to come clean at this point. As embarrassing as it may be, I was unaware of what Shepard Fairey has done with Obey Giant over the last fifteen years. After reading an AIGA Design Forum interview by Steven Heller and perusing the Obey Giant site, I have a better feel for what Shepard is all about. Although it is definitely not my style of communicating, he does do some very interesting work (visually and practically). I’m sure some of the early adopters of Obey Giant cringe every time they see Shepard Fairey doing commercial work, but you can’t argue with a guy paying the bills. From the Heller interview, it sounds like he carefully considers the clients that he works for. To design a poster for a film about a man who arguably never sold out, I think it is a good fit.
The poster leads me to believe that the people behind this movie respect creativity and what Johnny Cash stood for. Lets hope that this movie has the fortitude and consistency that Johnny Cash carried through in his life, music and even his appearance. The Man in Black had branding down before anyone really knew what it was all about.
Comments (12)
nate said:
My god that is he most refreshing theater poster I’ve ever seen. I consider myself quite the connoisseur of theater posters, and I know every cliché front and back. This is beautiful, and I’m glad the Walk the Line team had the courage/good sense to go in this direction.
Posted on September 20, 2005
kadavy said:
Ditto to that. I hope it doesn’t get watered down!
Posted on September 20, 2005
Emory said:
I’ve actually seen this poster inside of movie theaters so there is little need to worry about it being watered down any time soon.
Posted on September 20, 2005
Bennett said:
Emory, That is good to know. I will keep my eyes open. I’m sure it stands out in the theater.
Posted on September 20, 2005
JonSel said:
I saw a series of them at the Union Square theater in NYC on Friday night. They’re really nicely done.
Posted on September 21, 2005
jan said:
great post! and poster! nice to see this sans photo.
Posted on September 21, 2005
felix sockwell said:
Its not exactly genius, but nice. O wouldve rather seen Dugald Stermer simply draw an outline of the man in black …in black.
Its not about the guitar…
Posted on September 29, 2005
Steven Seighman said:
Actually, these are all over New York and in most cases, they are posted right next to other recent Shepard Fairey posters—for Spin, Virgin Megastores and Mobile Rock Corps. He’s taking over the city.
Posted on October 3, 2005
Mitch Barbour said:
When I heard the movie was coming out my excitement was hard to contain. When I saw this poster I was stunned. This poster caputures Mr. Cash. This is by far one of the greatest pieces of art I’ve seen in a very long time.
Posted on November 20, 2005
Bennett said:
I knew that this poster was too good to be true. At least in the midwest the theaters are displaying very average movie posters for Walk The Line. The posters consist of photography of Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon that look more like jewelry store ads than anything else.
Posted on November 21, 2005
Daniel Thompson said:
I don’t mean to dredge up old threads but I noticed that this incredible design made it all of the way to the DVD. So, kudos to the corporate heads who let this one slip past untainted.
Posted on April 24, 2006
Daniel Thompson said:
Sorry for the confusion. Apparently I was looking at a special edition DVD case. I finally saw the basic low-price version and my dissapointment is re-instated.
Posted on April 24, 2006