On the Eve of the 13th

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Poster Origin :Poland
Poster Size :Polish A1 / 594 x 841mm
Poster Artist :Jerzy Flisak
Poster Year :1961
Poster Version :First Release
Film Origin :Bulgaria
Film Director :Anton Marinowicz
Film Year :1961

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A deceptively simple design, using just two inks to create a dark, atmospheric piece of allegorical art.

Credits are a necessary evil of the film poster, and a troublesome and distracting aspect to most designers - few would argue that a long list of names improves a piece of artistic graphic design. They are rarely anything other than a footnote, given as little attention as possible.

Jerzy Flisak is not most designers. As demonstrated on numerous occasions, he embraces the small print and uses it to his advantage. The credits here are not only respected, they are purposeful, beautifully integrated, and actually necessary to the poster design - not immediately obvious at first, they form the white reflections of the moon across the water, and without them this image would be flat and lifeless.

The technique of integrating credits into the design was later used by Saul Bass on his suite of US posters for Advise & Consent, the 1-sheet being one of my favourite Bass pieces, perhaps for this very reason.