Chinese Copycat Movie Posters

2012.03.29 22:22

Most designers agree that the movie poster is pretty much the least creative form there is. Mainly due to Hollywood’s homogenization and emphasis on numbers over art, posters are pretty much copies of copies. But there’s copying, and then there’s Chinese copying.

Chinese copycat poster

The other day, I came across a rather comprehensive collection of copycat posters in China, with the layout, photographic style, and general concept lifted directly from Hollywood movies of recent years. Check it out for yourself.

This isn’t me calling out another designer for copying — there’s plenty of that on the web — this is me being puzzled over the apparent lack of home-grown creativity in the Chinese cinema industry. While the entire world enjoys mainstream Hollywood movies, I’m a little surprised to see that there isn’t a uniquely local design sensibility to rally around. For example, a Bollywood movie poster looks distinctively Indian, as does something from the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Africa. While the typography and photos of actors allow no ambiguity of this being Chinese in origin, I’m curious to see what true Chinese graphic design looks like.

It’s worth noting that this kind of copycat culture is par for the course in China. They’ve long been known to copy cameras, furniture, and clothing, and more recently, cars, restaurants, Apple stores and phones. Without going into detail, we’re also coping with this at work, so I’m learning all about it from another angle.

What are your thoughts? Are we allowed to be inspired by movie posters in creating new ones? Or should designers come up with entirely new designs as a matter of principle. And where are the Chinese designers in all this?

Disclaimer: This is a commentary on poster design. Don’t overreact.

2 Comments »
a tale of China, cinema, design_print, the industry, the internet

charleighcassidy

I think:
The stigma behind mainstream Hollywood movies in the Chinese culture makes the copycat production of the movie posters, dare I say it: a necessity.
It almost seems like the “tweaking,” if you will, is to avoid selling out . As if the use of the American poster would be doing just that–selling out.
Here, we Chinesed this movie poster up so you can feel better about enjoying American cinema… because, it’s not really copycatting if we put a little spin on it.
I should save my sarcasm, though, because I feel like journalists employ the same theory in the sense that when we produce a piece from data (interview, studies, etc.) we mix and match—paraphrase and reorganize and, in a sense, retool.

Nope.
Still different. And that’s because we have a general plan for how fact and opinion should be presented.

OK. I think I get it.
Since China has the tendency to excell in the copycat culture technique, that must mean there’s something about American cinema, in this case, worth copycatting. Thus, if the movie posters in China didn’t majorily resemble the American versions it would negatively affect their popularity… Right?

I suppose it the Chinese were dazzled by their own culture, they’d stick to it.

But here, with this mimicry, it’s like getting a serving of Amercian culture… without the calories!

So, you know, one can have as much as one desires without feeling guilty.
Emmataylor1992

We can’t underrate the value of inspiration from other designer’s work, but I suppose when the design looks so familiar you can automatically pin it to the original, it really becomes ‘borrowed.’ I don’t like to use the word ‘theft’, but I guess that’s what I’m getting at.

I think it’s also important to highlight that the Chinese ‘knock-offs’ aren’t just borrowing from America…

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