Alfred Hitchcock’s "Psycho" Poster
Hand Illustration | Photoshop
This poster, for Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho,” features the aftermath of the most iconic scene of this and any movie. Everyone knows this scene. Through countless parodies and retellings, it has become part of our cultural osmosis. The knowledge everyone has of prior creates a feeling of dread even if they have never actually seen the movie.
For the aesthetics, the line work is shaky and loose. Not everything is right in this scene. There is only one element in the poster, apart from the title, and that is the freshly emptied curtain rod. I also deliberately avoided using any reds in this scene. I thought that would be too cliché. Furthermore, Hitchcock didn’t need any red to make the scene horrifying. He just needed several quick camera cuts, a few cellos and some liquid Hershey's to become engraved in cinema history.
