An appreciation of Drew Struzan – the man who defined 80s Hollywood Film Poster aesthetics

Everyone’s familiar with his artwork but very few realise it’s one man behind some of the most defining images from many of the most iconic films from my childhood – the 80s. The name of the artist is Drew Struzan and he started his career on George Lucas’s Star Wars – the rest is history. He went on to create the instantly recognisable artwork for 80s classics such as Back To The Future, Blade Runner, Big Trouble In Little Trouble, The Cannon Ball Run as well as Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom to name a few. His style is an increasingly lost art-form involving physically drawing, painting and airbrushing the canvases for his unique Circus-Show montage style treatments. Crafted by hand, not by computer graphic packages I must emphasise. There is a magical hard-to-define nostalgic charm to his work that perfectly captures the spirit of the late 70s and 80s. I’m sure you’ll agree that these examples can be considered design classics. Modern film posters just don’t quite have the soul of these masterpieces.