Bugonia movie poster and trailer
Theatrical poster for Bugonia
For Yorgos Lanthimos’ latest film, Bugonia, the Greek director has teamed up again with longterm graphic designer Vasilis Marmatakis, At the center of the marketing campaign for the film is a weird geometric typeface called Churchward Roundsquare. The font is one of many designed by New Zealand graphic designer Joseph Churchward (1933–2013), founder of Churchward Type. His biography can be found in the Encyclopedia of New Zealand:
Samoan-born graphic designer Joseph Churchward was an internationally renowned typeface designer whose work graced record covers, billboards, newspapers and popular literature such as posters and brochures around the world, both during his lifetime and beyond. He hand-created around 700 typefaces, drawing upon influences from his Pacific heritage and family. His work was well known to the international design community from the 1960s but was not prominent in New Zealand until Te Papa Tongarewa acquired his archive and held an exhibition of his work in 2009.
In the context of Bugonia, Vasilis Marmatakis uses the typeface in quite a jarring manner. In the trailer for example, Marmatakis disturbs the naturally flowy Adobe Garamond Bold Italic for the credits, choosing to interrupt them halfway through with the harsh, sharp edges of a single letter of Churchward Roundsquare. The end result is jarring and off putting, a perfect tonal fit for the film work of Yorgos Lanthimos.
Churchward Roundsquare print negative, from the Museum of New Zealand (Te Papa Tongarewa)’s Pacific Cultures Collection.
Emma Stone credit, from the trailer
Jesse Plemons credit, from the trailer
Yorgos Lanthimos credit, from the trailer
3 Comments on “Bugonia movie poster and trailer”
When the poster came out – I was floored… Absolutely love it.
In an article by Arman Khan for It’s Nice That, Marmatakis reveals that he didn’t use the (discontinued) digitization by Chank Diesel, but instead created a custom digitization with the blessing of Churchward’s daugther, based on the negatives from the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa as shown above.
One of the best movie posters I came across in years. And I haven’t seen the movie yet! In my hometown there’s a club for the underground pop scene and they have great artwork, so I kind of have an eye for it.