Starting out as an apprentice to UK legend, Tom Chantrell, Tom Beauvais sketched out quite a colorful path for himself, designing several memorable quads for Mad Max, Honkytonk Man, and Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.
To learn more about him and British Film Poster artists in general, check out this interesting podcast by Sim Branaghan…
The Italian-born Renato Casaro has worked with his fair share of auteurs, including Bernardo Bertolucci, Francis Ford Coppola and yes, even Kevin Costner.
Having sketched out a distinguished career of painting epic scenes and classic Hollywood spoofs, he has since moved onto do portraits of the American West and African wildlife, much like his fellow contemporaries, John Solie, Robert Tanenbaum, and Howard Terpning.
Uncovered Films sent me a cool video about Pablo Ferro, the originator of the title sequences for Dr. Strangelove, Beetlejuice, and L.A. Confidential, to name just a few. So here’s a few more gems from the man that was once called a genius by Stanley Kubrick…
I’ve seen illustrator partners (Huyssen & Huerta) and illustrator siblings (The Brothers Hildebrandt), but never an illustrated couple…Let me introduce you to the Mr. and Mrs. Smith of the design world — Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell, a married couple with equally excellent drawing skills.
Boris was the hitman behind the awesome Barbarella and Vacation one-sheets, but these two lovebirds teamed up to do the recent Aqua Teen Hunger Force poster. What I also love about The Vallejo-Bell’s is that although they are super serious sci-fi/fantasy artists, they aren’t afraid to make fun of themselves and parody their own artwork.
Along with Jack Davis and Jack Rickard, Mort Drucker came from The Mad Magazine School of Art. Drucker’s cartoony style and celebrity caricatures have made him one of the “funniest” illustrators in the history of the movie/comics business!
Abbott & Costello…Martin & Lewis…Harold & Kumar…Barats & Bereta…
Now meet the movie poster world’s most dynamic duo, Roger Huyssen and Gerard Huerta, the lettermaking wonderboy who created the infamous AC/DC logo, among many others. They may not be as well-known as some of their contemporaries, but these guys go together like peanut butter and jelly with Huyssen doing the illustrations and Huerta providing the killer fonts. From candy bars and cereal boxes to album covers and Swiss Army watches, Huyssen and Huerta’s Art Deco-meets-Rock N’Roll designs have indeed made the world a much better-looking place.
Named one of AdAge’s People of the Century as well as being inducted into The Art Directors Hall of Fame, Steve Frankfurt has conquered both Madison Avenue and Hollywood. His title designs for Downhill Racer and Rosemary’s Baby are both routinely listed in the Top 100 posters of all-time. Not content though to merely dominate the worlds of legit entertainment, he once even did a remarkable campaign for a porno (Emmanuelle).
Like many poster artists of the 70’s and 80’s, Steven Chorney paid the bills doing illustration work for the likes of TV Guide and Reader’s Digest. Similar in style to Drew Struzan, his slick, shiny, starry-eyed one-sheets often stand out from the pack.
Everyone’s heard of The Coens, The Wachowskis, and The Hughes Bros — but what about Tim and Greg Hildebrandt? These wonder twins were purveyors of sci-fi/fantasy art (unfortunately, Tim died in 2006) and their legendary Star Wars poster is beloved by many Lucas fanboys, but their illustration was in fact based on the already existing Tom Jung version below (top right).
Movie Poster Museum 
