"Psycho"'s poster has, since I first saw it, caught my attention because of the sections used to fragment the main images and the striking colours, which truly represent the pop era while also bringing together the style of the film and its plot. Though most of Hitchcock's film posters were created from scratch —some are now regarded as pieces of art themselves, especially the ones designed by Saul Bass— this particular one is an exception, which does not make it worse necessarily. In fact, as I already said, I have always regarded it with admiration: that dominance of espace, the contrast between the lettres and the obscure background... Everything seems to portray the film without giving away too many aspects of the actual storyline.
The decision of placing the title underneath the main visuals is rather unusual, which makes the poster more compelling. Anyway, some classic features can easily be found within the cardboard: the title is the biggest element, followed by director and main actors, given more emphasis as to appeal to a larger fan base. The title, in fact, was originally developed for the novel on which the film is based; Hitchcock was delighted with the typography and he just bought the rights. In the Italian designer Tony Palladino's own words, "the design —stark white letters torn and seemingly pasted together against a black background to resemble a ransom note—was intended to illustrate typographically the homicidal madness of the novel’s protagonist, Norman Bates.”
Along with this main part, we can observe that the remaining sections where the creators of the poster want to draw the audience's attention are mainly the colour-tinted characters who seem to float in the reigning darkness of the canvas. There we have Janet Leigh, given the most importance due to her colour, yellow, which really stands out from the black surrounding, and also because of the size: she is the biggest item of the poster. Her tense facial expression implies that "Psycho" is a horror movie more than anything else. She is also identifiable as the victim within the first seconds: feminine, wearing nothing but her underwear, she seems attractive and helpless at the same time, adding to the fact that women who have sexual intercourse without being married, as she does in the film, tend to have an unfortunate ending. Her modern attitude towards marriage can be spotted by her lack of clothes, something, at least, surprising for a movie poster of its time.
Next to Leigh, the designers have placed the lover and the assassin, both in red as two different pillars of the action, each one with a completely distinctive relationship with the female protagonist. These contrasting bonds are connoted by specific details: she is looking away from the man in the left, the assassin, establishing a strange atmosphere of distrust which makes him suspicious. Her lover is under her, in a more controlled spot that she seems to supervise from her privileged position. Our eyes drift from one image to the next one like flashes of a camera; as some of the key scenes were shot during the film, in fact.
Exclamation marks are an element which comes in handy when trying to sell a product, in this case this film when it was first shown in theatres in 1960. Therefore, they are cleverly placed after the sentence "A new and altogether different screen excitement", which makes us aware of what to expect in general from "Psycho". These tricks always prove useful so we are able to rely on a specific group of people, in this case, viewers who appreciate unusual and exciting pieces of work, as potential clients of the entertainment we are producing. Moreover, psychological thriller and horror film lovers in general are probably going to feel curious about a movie after seeing the sinister lettres that compose the title in a poster like "Psycho"'s, together with the fearful face of the protagonist —who is, adding to the previous incentives, a seductive young woman showing part of her body features—.
The layout of the film is clearly grid based, a practical approach chosen by many designers, and the colours play their part as well. Yellow represents anxiety or consternation and red constitutes a synonym of danger or even anticipates the appearance of blood throughout the movie. Blue is used as a support, to add variety of tone, while white is a simple outliner. Black adds an air of mystery bound to make the target audience shiver at the sole thought of what is hidden behind the shadows. Is it a monster? A weapon? Or is it just lunacy?
