If you’ve never heard of Drew Struzan, I can pretty much guarantee that you’ll have seen his work. He’s been responsible for some of the greatest and most iconic movie posters for the last 30 years amassing over 300 pieces of work which includes Back to the Future, Stars Wars, Indiana Jones, Blade Runner and the Harry Potter franchise. In this book we get to see how his working relationship with some of the greatest directors in the world including George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis all come together.
For each poster that Drew has created, we get to find out how each was put together, the progression from the idea in his head to the final poster that we get to see on every bus shelter from here to LA. Each poster has a story behind it with one of my favourites being the progression to get the original Back to the Future poster completed. For many posters, Drew had to use himself as the model which then allowed him to draw the poster since he was unable to get photos of the actual cast member to complete his work. Other stories like Disney buying his original Adventures in Babysitting work and then leaving it to rot in a warehouse make for a fascinating story. Fortunately, someone he knew was tasked with throwing it out along with masses of other work and he managed to get it back but this insight into how each poster was created really is wonderful.
This new book gives us our first in depth look at Drew’s amazing poster designs and the stories behind each one of them with the foreword is given by Frank Darabont. If you like movie poster designs and specifically the work of Struzan, then this book is a must buy.
The Art of Drew Struzan is written by Drew Struzan and David J. Schow and is released 24th September and you can pre-order your copy here.