The Help

Synopsis: An aspiring author during the civil rights movement of the 1960s decides to write a book detailing the African-American maid's point of view on the white families for which they work, and the hardships they go through on a daily basis.

Design: Ignition Print who were in the running last year with Inception.

When I first saw this poster, the first question that entered my head was "What is the colour all about?" Yellow and purple don't immediately pop into my head as a colour palette reflecting the American Black Civil Rights Movement.
So after writing the last post on Extremely Close and Incredibly Loud, I did a bit of background research on the novel that the film was based onto see how the original cover looked and there I found my answer, not only to the colour choice but to the general layout!

In fact it looks like they just replaced the sparrows with the main characters in the movie. I wish they hadn't stopped there and used the elegant serif Sabon instead of the Century Gothic bold which they used instead. Although Century Gothic is an open and inviting font it still doesn't represent a race divided Mississippi in the 1960's. The general lay out is centered and is consistently across all the variations of the poster with only variations on the image being used but still sticking to the linear layout set by the original book jacket. 

The posters use of colour and type all make the film seem a little superficial which seems at odds with the subject matter. To me it shows the film as being a light hearted, sugary drama with moments that tug on your heartstrings, but all set in a world that depicts a flattened version of history, populated with obvious heroes and villains, so job done!