Suppose you walk into a bookstore and are immediately beckoned by a brightly colored book cover that features an exquisite sunset over a stunningly surreal ocean. You pick up the book and turn it on its face. Unfortunately the description on the back doesn’t pique your interest nearly as much as the book’s enchanting cover. Nevertheless, you pull out your debit card and carry your newfound treasure to the cashier.
What just happened? Art sold art.
Art Sells Art
This happens all the time. Songs featured in movies become wildly popular; an art exhibition features the works of an unknown artist, which in turn makes him or her a household name overnight; expertly designed DVD covers allure consumers to buy; and theater posters sell theater tickets unassisted.
Erik Piepenburg of The New York Times declares, “Great theater posters…sell by design…the best posters convey the conceptual complexities of the plays they serve.”
Indeed, some of the most beautiful designs in the world can be found on the covers of theater posters.
Examples of Great Theater Poster Art
There are many remarkably crafted theater posters. Here are a couple posters that are impressive:
A Small Fire – Designed by Julia McNamara, A Small Fire’s show poster features two sets of hands, one red and the other white, on a solid black background. Speaking of the hands, McNamara says, “…I think of them as more feminine hands. They were always red, like fire. The color scheme really works. It makes it striking.”
Stage Kiss – Stage Kiss’s show poster, designed by Courtney Waddell Eckersley, displays hundreds of lipstick-laden kiss prints, all layered on top of one another. In reference to creating the graphic for the poster, Eckersley says, “I…picked up as many bright opaque and inexpensive lipstick shades as I could find.” Then, she and an intern “kissed the page a lot.” The piece appears abstract from a distance, but the lip prints are quite visible up close.
Art in all its forms often says more than words can ever express. Art is beauty. It entices, allures, and invites the beholder to come closer. There is no better way to sell art than by using another form of art to do so. This phenomenon takes place when an artful theater poster sells out a show.
Has a theater poster ever inspired you to purchase a theater ticket, simply because the poster was great? What are some of your favorite theater posters? When have you noticed art enticing you to purchase art?
Read more Segmation blog posts about art and color:
Selling Your Art in a Strained Economy
Art Transforms Traditional Business Practices
Selling your art at outdoor art fairs
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According to Dimopoulos, “Color is a powerful stimulant, and means of altering perception and defining space and time.” Blue is definitely not the color that we associate with trees. The striking color contrast forces one to consider what must be out of place and what has changed in the world. 
Ritualistic— People who gather together to create and critique art have more unifying interactions and ceremonies than groups who don’t. A evolutionary ethologist, Ellen Dissanayake, makes the point that historically, people who came together for the purpose of art “…were able to survive longer than those who did not engage in using art.” Art rituals have been part the human experience since its beginnings. In fact, much of history reflects that people have always come together for the purpose of art. Do you remember studying Tibetan sand paintings? Or Native American totem-polls? These were sacred rituals for cultural groups at certain times throughout history. Malchiodi points out how these rituals were founded in human survival-instinct because “they help us make meaning of life as well as reduce life’s inevitable stresses.”
Outside The Lines 