The Blockbuster Rip-Off
The cockroach of Fringe posters. It will never die, because it’s so easy to do: you just stick your cast’s faces on the year’s biggest film. All you need is Photoshop, between two-three minutes, and a kink for receiving legal emails from Kevin Feige. It’s the graphic design equivalent of singing a famous song and replacing all the lyrics with the word ‘boobs’. Funny for precisely 30 seconds.
The Stand-Up Telling It Like It Is
A primary coloured backdrop. A Getty Images retro microphone. A title comprised of a bland English language aphorism that means nothing: Cards On the Table. In For A Penny. First Things First. And in the centre, shrugging on a stool – a white man in a T-shirt, scratching his head and looking confused. He’s scratching his scalp because he has scabies. And because he couldn’t wrap his head around Microsoft Paint.
The Overly-Serious Magic Show
Underneath a monolithic one word title (ZENITH! MIRAGE! PRETENTIOUS!), looking you dead in the eye is a magician in a suit. He’s in a suit because he means business – even though, let us not forget, he is a freelance magician. Technically these are called ‘mentalists’ even though that sounds like what you would call your most insane friend. I strongly believe that magicians should wear capes, and they should only wear suits if they’re in court. Which they should be. For this poster design.
The Dungeons & Dragons Improvaganzareno
Men in their 30s with beards and graphic Ts in heroic poses, pulling jaunty faces and overusing the font Garamond. Very well-meaning but there are so many people in this poster and they look like they’ve just taken over your favourite pub to loudly play boardgames.
I Spent Too Much Time on Instagram
Congratulations! You have designed a semi-tasteful poster! An absurdly flattering headshot. A title font from an A24 film. A backdrop with the emotionally repressed symmetry of Wes Anderson. It’s beautiful! What’s the show even about? Is it poetry? Is it a play? Is it, like everything else, a bit of stand-up about your anxiety, dishwashers, dating apps and Trump? Yes. Yes, it’s that last one.
Ben Pope: The Cut, Assembly George Square, 30 Jul-24 Aug (not 13), 5.05pm