1980s horror movie poster logos and typography.

It amazes me how few movies have an identity. While millions of dollars are spent on the marketing campaign of Hollywood movies, their logos or wordmarks are usually much cheaper: $35 (the price of the Trajan ‘movie font.’ on MyFonts.com).



Logos/wordmarks like you see above are gradually becoming extinct. They’re being replaced by Trajan, which has become the go-to font for horror movie posters. As a result, very few movie identities stand out from the crowd. Typography is hardly ever used anymore to express the theme or atmosphere of a movie (exceptions being Saw (2004) or House of the devil (2009) ).



If your movie is frightening, disgusting or gory, why not communicate that with moviegoers? That’s what they did during the 1980s. As a result every movie or franchise had it’s own unique identity. All the poster designers needed was a pen and ink. That’s even cheaper than $35!

