Film posters have dated back to the early days of cinema giving audiences a glimpse of a title. They have been crucial in enticing audiences into the multiplexes to watch films and while today’s media ecosystem means that advertising is different to what it was before the era of social media with viewers watching clips and trailers through their feeds, posters remain a key part of marketing a film.

Posters continue to generate publicity as the release of Bong Joon Ho’s forthcoming Mickey 17 recently illustrates, while cities such as London and its sprawling tube network wouldn’t look the same without film posters featuring quotes from newspaper critics. Indeed, posters of revered titles have been collectors’ items.

Posters come in different forms as they target different audiences. Take for instance, The Host that emphasized family on its poster with the family front and center spanning different generations as it successfully lured in both young and older audiences. The UK poster on the other hand was more reminiscent of Jaws with the beast lurking in the Han River as it sought to sell it as a genre film.

Korean posters for both more mainstream and independent cinema have featured a range of styles demonstrating the wealth of talent in Korea’s design sector. The recent success of the independent film House of the Seasons that has sold over 30,000 tickets has put the colorful and alluring poster under the spotlight, which again centers on a family.

This week, we will profile Korea’s poster designer studios starting with Studio Diverse that created the House of the Seasons poster before profiling Sputnik (Squid Game), Propaganda (Train to Busan), Bitnaneun (Mother) and Kkotsbom (Exhuma).

Studio Diverse

Having designed posters for independent films (Another Way (2015)) and also commercial titles, which included the character posters for The Merciless (2017) that was invited to the Cannes Film Festival, Studio Diverse has been involved in array of projects. It was also behind the poster for the stage musical Hero when it celebrated its tenth anniversary in 2019.

With the industry becoming more driven by streaming content, it has also put together posters for OTT content including dramas for the Tving streaming platform (Adult Trainee (2021), Witch Hunt 2022, Witch Hunt 2023, Dear X Who Doesn’t Love Me (2022)) that targeted teenagers and those in their 20s, as well as other mini-series such as the SBS drama Cheer Up (2022) and the KBS drama Love All Play (2022). The company also produced artwork for the Netflix series A Killer Paradox (2024) featuring the shows main characters played by Choi Min-sik, Son Suk-ku and Lee Hee-joon, which performed well on the platform.

It also designed posters for other events including the Art For;rest Festival 2024, the stage musical Cyrano produced by CJ ENM, while one of its most recent project was designing the promotional material for the horror comedy film Idiot Girls and School Ghost: School Anniversary (2024) that premiered at the Bucheon International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFAN) in July and went on release on November 6.

One of its recent highlights is House of the Seasons (2024) posters that capture the film’s idyllic rural setting of a tofu factory and its themes of family drama and tensions when the grandson is expected to take on the family business but refuses to do so.

Studio Diverse’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/studio_diverse/