Magic Posters Are Cool

So, today is Harry Houdini's birthday, and Google created a really cool Houdini poster take on the Google logo.

This is pretty cool.  It invokes the style of the early magic posters: bold colors, bold lettering, always a picture of the performer doing something spectacular.  And I like Google's use of the drop shadow to drive home the point that it is supposed to resemble an actual paper poster, the kind of broadside advertisements hung outside theaters and other venues.

Here are some other examples.  This one seems like the people at Google may have been looking at this particular poster or something very similar to it.  Notice the similarities in the font.

This one below doesn't have any spectacular trick being performed, so it looks like they went with more in terms of decoration.  And the portrait seems to simulate a photograph more than the "illustration" depiction in the poster above.

Getting away from Houdini, here is another magic poster, and it is quite different.  This poster is "all trick."  Swanky decor and rugs (and the kneeling Indian servant) were meant to give this act/performance an air of exotic mysticism.  I will get into the racist undertones regarding the concept of the "inscrutable exotic" some other time.  But I do think it is interesting that there is a shift here.  The focus is NOT on the performer.  Houdini was a huge name in his day, so it would make sense that his face be at the forefront.  His posters featured his name and face recognition.  In the poster below, the focus is clearly on the act or "feat of magic" or illusion and the mood and atmosphere of the performance.  It is focused on the spectacle of the event rather than the performer.  I think there is also an attempt to convince the viewer that this is reality.  There are no vignettes or up-close portraits.  Although the poster looks nothing like a photograph, the fact that the composition is done in a realistic style, using perspective and no extraneous adornment, the promoters may have been trying to pass this off as a kind of illustration of reality.  In other words, real levitation.  Magicians use parlour tricks and sleight of hand, but this is what you will witness at the performance: levitation.  And if paying customers walked in and saw three people dressed similar as to how they are depicted, the background scenery a duplicate of the poster, they may be more inclined to believe what they see is reality.  That's just my take, though.

And finally, we have this poster: Carter the Great, who is, apparently, the world's weird, wonderful wizard.  This poster is pretty awesome, because it is a work of art.  Fanciful figures, lush color palette, and the performer isn't hamming it up for the poster (see below).  He seems intent on something.  I think this provides as nice contrast to the poster above.  There is no pretension of representing reality.  This is fantasy, imagination, and artistic expression.  It is beautiful to look at.  I would steal this poster.

A similar poster for Carter the Great was used for the novel Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gould.  I have not read it myself, but if it involves a magician and the Devil, I might very well be interested.

Carter Beats the Devil