Winter's Bone

Winter's Bone. Directed by Debra Granik.

Synopsis:
An unflinching Ozark Mountain girl hacks through dangerous social terrain as she hunts down her drug-dealing father while trying to keep her family intact.

Design: Five33

OK the last one up is Winter's Bone I don't know much about this film as it's only getting it's release here in France at the moment. The poster on first look doesn't really tell me much, a photoshopped collage of elements, tell me it has a female lead, takes place in the wild and looks like it's not going to be Toy Story 3! The typeface looks like Helvetica with a stenciled effect treatment to the film's title giving it a cold icy look, this is echoed in the over all colour palette making it feel cold.

The general layout differs from the standard  'everything centered' approach of the majority of posters we have seen. The right ranged text balances with the girl's image, the negative space created by the trees creates a perfect place to place the text while the tree line leads the eye to the movies title. All in all a well constructed poster, if a little cliched in it's content.

It's only when you look at other posters in the series that you notice a distinct lack of consistency, certain elements are the same such as the girl and the trees but typographically, structurally and colour wise each have their own take. I don't think that one studio was responsible for all of these, if they were then their consistency checker was  at lunch the day these went out the door.

The title typefaces range from Kabel to Helvetica Neue and while trawling the net I came across a hand written version for the French release. With the placement, the film title sits at the top, middle or the bottom depending on which images are used. Even if this was down to regional taste and preferences, the same title font could have been used, all in all it feels a bit disjointed.