AS Media Studies - The King's Speech Poster Analysis

The king’s speech poster consists of three main colours yellow, black and red. Through the use of the colour yellow the designer creates a warm atmosphere that, like red has conflicting symbolism. The use of the colour yellow relates to the film as it denotes happiness and joy but on the other hand yellow is the colour of cowardice and deceit. The designer uses the yellow background due to its high visibility, drawing the eye to the poster by standing out on any surface. Using the colour red on the yellow background keeps in with the warmth. The colour choices as a whole seem to be very effective in grabbing the audiences’ attention.

The main Image consists of a mic and extreme close up of Colin Firth’s lower face in order to introduce the films topic to the audience. The image of the mic suggests the time era as technology has developed tremendously over the years. Also by having it so close to the character it suggest how he communicates with others, this also makes the character more authoritative through the projection of his voice.

Through the use of the extreme close up to hide the majority of facial features, the designer hides the identity of the main character but at the same time draws the audience’s attention to the key aspect of the film. By using an extreme close up it creates a focal point for the audience. Because we are unable to see the full face of the character this suggests that maybe the he has something to hide and is slowly revealing himself. By showing the detail in the facial features and drawing the audience’s eye immediately to the lips of the character it gives the audience a hint by for shadowing the films content.

The designer took into mind the background colour when creating the images within the poster. The yellow background through the images creating an aged yet transparent look. When making parts of both images seem transparent it links to the film as we start to be very unclear of Colin Firth’s character but slowly as the film progresses it reveals more about him personally. By using a large image to take up the majority of the page and making the yellow background stick out in between the image it makes the image seem more striking and simple at the same time. It also emphasizes the coward ness of King George, but because we only see some yellow through the image it suggest that he overcomes this.

The title ‘The King’s Speech,” is written in a red sans-serif font, making it clear to the audience of the movie’s possible plot line, as red is a typical regal colour. The colour of the title also stands out, and is bold upon the yellow background. The ‘I’ is dotted with a crown symbol, showing the importance of word ‘King,’ as well as revealing to the audience that the movie has an element of royalty.

The text bellow the title states three main actors within the film, Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter, using a serif font, in order to set them apart from the title, yet still show that these actors are of importance. Firth, Rush and Carter are well known actors, thus their names are displayed close to the title, and encourage the audience to view the film.

The poster indicates that the film was released around Christmas time; when people are off of work and school, and have much more time and money to spend on visits to the cinema.