Theatrical poster by F Ron Miller for the Cinema Guild release of “Matt and Mara”, directed by Kazik Radwanski
Much of Jean-Luc Godard’s Vivre sa vie focuses on Anna Karina’s face and the sensitivity of her expressions. F Ron Miller’s cover art for The Criterion Collection edition of the film does that, too. He also knows how to make the most precise and effective distillation of one of Hitchcock’s favourite plots, for The 39 Steps – an innocent man, wrongfully accused of a crime, on the run from the authorities, with all sorts of things happening to him with bewildering rapidity. F Ron Miller even accomplishes the almost impossible task of capturing in an image the frenetic energy of Harold Lloyd’s rollercoaster ride of laughs and action that is the silent slapstick comedy Speedy – but he also seems to simply tell us “Look at his dare-devil stunt!” of the same Harold Lloyd in Safety Last. And he promptly makes us aware that we are direct participants, the public feeding on the carnival frenzy, in Billy Wilder’s bleak worldview in Ace in the Hole, the director’s most cynical noir.
So many different ways to celebrate movies. A good artists’s poster never lacks a poetic level. Nor does it lack setting up an expressive subtext of the film. Design is a problem-solving process and each film is different, and F Ron Miller’s poster designs reflect this wonderful variety of the films he has worked on. It engages viewers in not just the film, but in spirited games of visual thinking.
Graphic designer and art director F Ron Miller, a graduate of the California Institute of the Arts and London’s Royal College of Art, is probably the most prolific artist collaborator of The Criterion Collection, the company dedicated to the riches of film history and to restoring and publishing classic and contemporary films, with more than 70 covers in the collection, and numerous other film posters to his name, as well as the title sequences for many James Mangold films, from Walk the Line to Ford v Ferrari and, most recently, A Complete Unknown.
In our interview, Ron and I talk about his formative years at CalArts and his lifelong friendship with James Mangold, cultivating creativity on his own since childhood, the different approaches to title sequences, how the post-war movie posters of Eastern Europe and then Hans Hillmann paved the way for Criterion’s influential cover art, and how working in silence has made him a better designer.
Title sequence design by F Ron Miller for James Mangold’s “A Complete Unknown”
Ron, what is your earliest drawing memory?
Donald Duck! I was maybe five years old and it was the first time I ever drew from reference. I remember that it took a lot of focus to recreate what I was seeing. Summoning the eye-hand coordination was exhausting. I might have given up were it not for a voice inside that kept me going — it’s a voice that’s been with me for all things creative ever since. It was kind of profound actually.
Did your parents foster this creativity?
Not especially. It was something I cultivated on my own.
”I might have given up were it not for a voice inside
that kept me going — it’s a voice that’s been with me
for all things creative ever since.”
What sparked your interest in cinema and how did you get into film poster design? And were there any early influences in your work?
I’ve loved movies and comics since I was a kid. It goes back so far that I couldn’t say how or when it started. My dad was in advertising and that may have been the thing that tipped the scales of my interest towards graphic design. I remember in high school checking out a book from the library about George Lois and thinking, yep, this what I want to do.
I studied at CalArts, mentored there by the great Louis Danziger. I came to appreciate the art of poster making through that lens. I owe so much to him. Professionally, film posters wouldn’t come until much later after I began working with The Criterion Collection. Distributors and filmmakers that had seen the Criterion stuff began to reach out asking if I’d do something for them.
Cover artwork by F Ron Miller for the Criterion Collection editions of “Tess”, directed by Roman Polanski,
and “Arsenic and Old Lace”, directed by Frank Capra
When asked how he would describe an ideal design education, in an interview from the late 1990s with Steven Heller, Louis Danziger answered: “A great teacher or great designer and some great students hanging out. An environment where students find themselves discussing their work and the design world with each other. I believe ultimately that great education is self education especially in the arts.” I would like to use that quote as preamble to ask you: Do you find it important to have formal education in art?
Absolutely. At least, for me it was and for the very reasons Lou describes. I couldn’t say it any better. That was my four years at CalArts. It’s possible, though pretty unlikely, that everything I learned in that setting could have come to me eventually, but to have it all land at once during a formative time… it prepared me in a particular way. There’s still a lifetime to learn after that. You never stop learning. All of it goes atop of that strong foundation.
“I like to think with pencil in hand.”
What is the most valuable lesson that you learned at the school of graphic design?
The CalArts experience taught me the value of thinking conceptually. That the solution comes from the problem. The execution is in service to the idea being communicated.
And what is the most important skill that you have honed as you’ve evolved as an artist?
Listening perhaps. Clients, art directors, any of your collaborators are telling you their needs. An ability to listen and to serve from an understanding is fundamental to the outcome.

”That was my four years at CalArts. […]
To have it all land at once during a formative time…
it prepared me in a particular way.”

Cover, packaging and DVD menu design by F Ron Miller for the Criterion Collection edition of
“Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story by Martin Scorsese”
You have worked on the title sequences of a few James Mangold films. Can you tell me how you approached each project and how that experience was like?
I approach them all with great enthusiasm! Jim’s a long-time friend from the days at CalArts. I was designing posters and titles for his movies even then. With a life-long friend comes a shorthand and a trust that you don’t get with most client/designer relationships.
That said, I approach the material in the same manner as I would with anyone. I watch the movie and gather some first impressions. Then I’ll listen to what Jim has to say — find out what he needs and what he feels the movie needs. Then I go back to my studio and get out a pencil and paper. I like to think with pencil in hand. Getting ideas out on the page, even the bad ones, gives me something to react to. It’s a meditation of sorts. One idea inevitably leads to the next. Thumbnails are incredibly useful. I try to make as many as I can and not to stop when I think I’ve got it because sometimes something better can bubble up. There’s no such thing as the solution only a solution.
If the task is to compose a title or a name in a frame, then it becomes critical that my choices relate to the subject, time period or genre of the movie. Movies, like most any design project, are collaborations. I’m giving voice to the director’s vision. What you see on screen are the director’s choices in tandem with my contributions. No different than any other department on a movie.
“With a life-long friend comes a shorthand and a trust
that you don’t get with most client/designer relationships.”
It’s about crafting a world and when I think of James Mangold, I think of a consistent quality of making movies and of the painstakingly detailed and authentic recreations of past decades – in many of his films, it is the 1960s: Walk the Line, Ford v Ferrari, A Complete Unknown. Did you have to consider re-creating period typography when you designed the titles?
There was never a requirement that the type choices be era-appropriate, but when you’re presented with a project that’s as sensitive to those priorities as Jim’s, those considerations seem a given. Jim’s direction to me, while never explicitly: use these kinds of typefaces, was open and clear. I offered him choices based on my understanding of the movie and his notes — I suppose as an actor might offer performance choices. Jim chose from the first round of offerings. We were in synch.
The world created in those films is also a world meant to be seen on the big screen. It was a joy to watch A Complete Unknown at the cinema. What’s the best film you recently watched on the big screen?
Recently? Oh gosh, I have a hard time ranking things. In no particular order, A Real Pain, Conclave and A Complete Unknown are tops on my ‘recents’ list. All to be seen and especially in a movie theater.
Poster design by F Ron Miller for the Oscilloscope Laboratory release of “Lost in Paris”, a film by Abel & Gordon
And which would be one of your most memorable experiences from going to the movies?
No singular experiences come to mind. Although there was a time when I was in high school, living in Pittsburgh, I had a pack of movie-going friends. We’d see something every weekend. Hollywood, art-house, international films, we saw it all. The game changer for me was discovering the revival houses. Until then, I’d only seen older movies on television. Seeing them, many for the first time, on a big screen with an audience.. it was transformative.
It truly is. Do you believe in the future of cinemas?
I like to think they’ll continue to be around. So long as they’re showing something worth seeing, there will be an audience. There’s no better way to watch a movie.
Keyart by F Ron Miller for the Grasshopper Film release of Eshan Khoshbakht’s “Film Farsi”
What would you say is the primary function of the title sequence?
The primary function? Showing the name of the movie and crediting the filmmakers. After that, it becomes about setting a tone and doing something to orient the audience — putting them in a certain frame of mind and set them up for what’s to follow or, in the case of end titles, to serve as coda to what came before.
I probably should have phrased the question differently and refer to the style of approach. I was, on the one hand, thinking of your title design for the James Mangold films, for example, that combination of film narrative and graphics that is very subtle yet powerful, and then at the prologue-like, abstract images of the title sequence of films such as The Man with the Golden Arm or Bonjour Tristesse.
Yeah, those are two entirely different approaches. Each speaks to the narrative priorities of the filmmaker. One’s about jumping into the story straight away as credits run concurrently. That’s perhaps a more immersive strategy. The other’s about a transitional space of pictures, words and music that edifies the story about to unfold. It’s more partitioned and works something like an overture. We need both and all the other types in between.
Cover art by F Ron Miller for “Vivre sa vie”, by Jean-Luc Godard
Which would be some of your favourite title sequences in the history of cinema?
You mentioned Bonjour Tristesse, that’s exceptionally pretty. Anything by Saul Bass is hard to beat. Spartacus, and Nine Hours to Rama also stand out to me. Funny Face, designed by Richard Avedon, is a favorite and that begets Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, designed by Juan Gatti. I also like what’s going on in Jean-Luc Godard’s A Woman Is A Woman. Those are ones that come to mind off the top of my head.
What makes a good film poster?
Ideally, one with a concept. Something that communicates an idea and tells you something about the movie. Is it a funny movie? A love story? Is there a big idea? Communicate something. Give the viewer something to engage their interest. If you can manage that, then you’re one step closer to creating a memorable movie poster.
“Great art direction isn’t someone telling someone else
‘do this and do it this way’. It’s determining and
encouraging directions to go in search of the solution.”
You’ve had a long-term collaboration with Criterion Collection. Do you think film poster designers are prone to being more creative when they are working on a film that is restored or re-released and the public is already familiar with the film than on a new theatrical release that usually puts accent on the marketable value of the actors’ image and their names?
I don’t think re-releases are any more prone to creative opportunities than a new theatrical release. If you find a poster to be creative, that’s often the result of the client’s desire, thoughtful art direction and a talented designer. Supporting that poster at every step is the belief that that kind of work is both worthwhile and effective. Creative solutions are out there. The Criterion Collection doesn’t have a corner on that market. What makes Criterion especially worthy is the way they value and prioritize creative solutions. That’s a rare thing.
Or is translating a director’s vision even harder after others have done it before?
It can be limiting when certain ideas or ways of representing the movie are off the table because they’ve been done before. For sure, I’ve encountered this dilemma. You have to keep at it until a new idea presents itself. My work designing re-issues has been exclusively with Criterion. Typically, I’m working with notes from the art director (hello, Sarah Habibi and Eric Skillman!) who, in turn, are informed by Criterion’s view of the project. Criterion has a story that they want to tell about a movie. Having direction is extremely important. Great art direction isn’t someone telling someone else “do this and do it this way”. It’s determining and encouraging directions to go in search of the solution. Sometimes the solution is quite close to the thing you both imagined from the onset. Sometimes it’s something unexpected you discover along the way.
Cover artwork by F Ron Miller for the Criterion release of “Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words”, a film by Stig Björkman
The choice to use photographic imagery for a cover art, for example, does it always come from Criterion?
Usually. A note like that often comes from discussions that take place prior to my involvement. The door’s open for how I might treat that photo. It’s a rare day when the note is to use a specific photo in a specific way. Often there are multiple images to work with. There’s typically latitude in the process.
Ingrid Bergman: In Her Own Words. Where did you start and what was the design process like?
It starts with the movie. This one’s a documentary about the life of Ingrid Bergman. It’s told largely from her point of view and it quite extensively, uses filmed sequences shot by her. Bergman was gifted a 16mm film camera when she was young and used it frequently throughout her life. The concept of Ingrid Bergman as filmmaker is central to the movie and the story we wanted to tell. The Bergman estate provided several images of Ingrid with her camera. They were irresistible and informed all of my subsequent choices.
Essentially, I had two prevailing ideas I wanted to communicate through the artwork. One, conceptually: this was a story told from Ingrid’s point of view — including the things she saw through her camera. So I clipped the type to suggest the scope of her vision. And two, formally: Criterion, around that time, had released a boxed set of Ingrid Bergman movies directed by Roberto Rossellini which I’d also designed. I wanted them to pair well — to visually feel akin to one another. Maybe not as sister releases, though perhaps a close cousin.
Cover artworks by F Ron Miller for the Criterion editions of Harold Lloyd’s “The Kid Brother”
“That’s Harold Lloyd hanging from a clock-face over the streets
of Los Angeles! For real. No photo retouching, no cut and paste.
It’s iconic and I didn’t want the type to take away from that.”
Cover artwork by F Ron Miller for The Criterion editions of Harold Lloyd’s “Speedy” and “Safety Last”
Harold Lloyd’s The Kid Brother, Speedy and The Freshman, and Chaplin’s The Kid are particular favorites of mine. The title treatments you used for each cover is natural and immediate and in relation to the image used, so evocative for each story. What was the jumping off point of inspiration for each of these?
Thanks for the kind words. They’re favorites of mine too. A fun dimension with the Criterion projects is sometimes they like to have releases that take place over extended periods of time work as a set. Safety Last was done first without any considerations for future Harold Lloyd movie releases, but it sure set a tone and one that I enjoyed seeking to recapture with the subsequent two.
The jumping off point is of course the famous image of Lloyd dangling from the clock-face and, really, when it comes to Safety Last, there’s no greater image. So we had that. The thing about that shot is that it isn’t faked. What you see is what’s really happening. I mean, there’s some movie magic to heighten the effect, but at the end of the day that’s Harold Lloyd hanging from a clock-face over the streets of Los Angeles! For real. No photo retouching, no cut and paste. It’s iconic and I didn’t want the type to take away from that.
Plus, it’s such a famous shot that it doesn’t really need type, but it was getting type anyway. I didn’t want some of bifurcated reading experience where the title floated somehow above or below the image. That’s when I hit on making the type a part of the image and integrating it into the scene. I wanted the type to be fun and real to the image in a way that Harold was funny and real to his work. Above all, I wanted Harold Lloyd to be the first thing you saw.
The Chaplin cover was the first — and I think only Charlie Chaplin cover Criterion did involving a photograph. The rest were illustrations. I don’t recall the rationale, but that decision had been made before the project came to me. There was also an interest in doing with it what I’d done successfully with the Lloyd covers, only how could it be done a little differently? I deliberately didn’t treat the type as signage or use a period type style in situ and I think that sufficiently distances it from the Lloyd covers. The brush lettering plays like graffiti to me. Maybe the Little Tramp and the Kid just painted it there? That cop suggests they’re up to something.
Cover artwork by F Ron Miller for the Criterion editions of Charlie Chaplin’s “The Kid” and Bertrand Tavernier’s “‘Round Midnight”
It’s just a great cover. Another favourite poster art that does not involve a photograph of any actors is your theatrical poster for Matt & Mara, for Cinema Guild, another company that is doing a great job at enriching and preserving a film culture of which the promotional artworks are a huge part. What was it about this film that triggered you to draw?
Well, keep in mind that the drawing is the end result — not the departure point. With Matt and Mara, like any other movie, I design multiple options for poster directions. In the past, I’ve offered drawings as solutions, but this happened to be one of those fortunate occasions where that point of view clicked with the director as well as Cinema Guild.
Matt and Mara’s a story about a friendship at a juncture in the relationship. I wanted to visualize that without giving anything away. Was it a good thing? A bad thing? Does it matter? The drama is that they’re tangled up in one another. At first, I made a series of designs using photos as intersecting portraits. They were intriguing, though maybe not tonally right for a movie which has a certain delicacy. There’s a moment in the story where one character leaves a little drawing in a book for another. That sparked me to reconsider my intersecting portrait conceit as a drawing instead. I was thrilled when Kazik Radwanski, the director, related to the drawing too. It was one design among many for him to consider. Had it not landed with him, it would have been a completely different poster.
You’ve worked on many art covers for movies that have music front and center, from ‘Round Midnight (loved this film, in no other film of his was Tavernier’s affinity for music and love for cinema probably more evident than here) to Rolling Thunder Revue to George Harrison Living in the Material World. Does music play an important role in your life?
Music, like drawing, has been with me as far back as I can remember. I’m fond of all types and over the years have burrowed obsessively into various genres and artist’s catalogs. Elvis Costello, Steely Dan, Django Reihhardt, Nino Rota, Bernard Herrmann, Thelonious Monk —I could easily and happily go on and on. I cut my teeth as a staff designer at A&M Records back in the day and soon after that freelanced as a designer around town for most of the record companies in Los Angeles. I learned a lot about myself and my craft doing that. I enjoy listening to music as much as I ever have, but, funnily enough, stopped listening to it when I work. These days I prefer to work in silence. It promotes a meditative process in me that I think has made me a better designer.

Unused poster by F Ron Miller for the documentary “Linda Ronstadt, The Sound of My Voice”, by Ron Epstein and
Jeffrey Friedman. Poster art for “A Hard Day’s Night”, directed by Richard Lester.
”These days I prefer to work in silence.
It promotes a meditative process in me
that I think has made me a better designer.”
Poster design by F Ron Miller for Martin Scorsese’s George Harrison: Living in the Material World”
The variety of styles and reinterpretations from each artist who has collaborated with The Criterion Collection, thus enriching the film landscape, is amazing. This kind of art work forever advances the language of cinema. Every time a Criterion cover is released I feel that it helps cut through the visual noise we all experience at the moment. It’s like a cultural movement. How do you feel being part of that?
It feels purposeful and it’s extremely gratifying. Everyone at Criterion cares about what they’re putting out and into the world. Creating in that mindset and knowing how the work is often received makes me a better designer. You do your best work for your best clients.
”You do your best work for your best clients.”
Do you remember the first film poster that made you want to go to the cinema and watch a film?
I grew up at a time when movie theaters advertised in newspapers. The first posters I remember seeing would have been there. I’d pour over that imagery week to week. The earliest I recall was probably The Exorcist. It confounded me because it was so enigmatic. What was going on in that house? What made me so fascinated? Was it the movie’s reputation as the scariest thing ever? I’ll never know, but it sure had me. I also remember the artwork for Earthquake. The type as crumbling city! Whoa. It was so monumental. The summer after that was Jaws and, from then on, I didn’t really need a poster to sell me on a movie. Posters became an object to celebrate a movie.
I wholeheartedly agree with that and I think it is a very honest definition of the movie poster. I also believe that a good poster will have a life past the release date, and will always linger as a reminder of the film it represents and as a memory of a film you enjoyed.
Oh, for sure. A movie poster serves as a kind of mnemonic. They can carry a charge of associations. Sometimes greater than the movie itself.

Cover art by F Ron Miller for The Criterion editions of Billy Wilder’s “Ace in the Hole”,
Gus Van Sant’s “Drugstore Cowboy” and “Bringing Up Baby”, directed by Howard Hawks
You grew up in a time when you saw film posters in newspapers. Now there is a lot of online advertising for films. How big a part do you think Criterion covers have played in showing us what design for film can be and in the evolution of online imagery for streaming?
Criterion’s influence is substantial and pervasive. Although the evolution I think you’re indicating has an important precedent: the post-war movie posters of Eastern Europe, most notably the Polish movie posters. That work is astonishing — and liberating. It was free from the constraints of distributors, so it interpreted the subjects as they saw fit. Talk about a wholly new way of looking at movie posters… and by extension, it asks the viewer to look at the movie differently too. It was a movement defined not by a style but an ethos. It set a tone and standard for what could be done with a movie poster.
Some time after that, you get designers like Hans Hillman in Germany approaching the material with a keen understanding of the movie and he ups the game even further. His influence and those of the Eastern Europeans eventually finds its way west, so by the time Criterion becomes Criterion there’s an appreciation and an understanding of its value. It’s kinda crazy that no one thought to do it sooner. Now it’s part of the culture.
Without Criterion covers, I don’t think you get Mondo Posters nor the sub-culture of fan-generated, so-called alternative movie posters. At least, not in the way we have all that today. The internet serves, I think, as an accelerant and feedback chamber. Now even the movie studios are getting in on the game and paying designers to make alt posters for their tent-pole releases. Mostly I think it’s because the online world is so splintered they’re looking for ways to exploit every niche they can. The beauty of the internet is that you don’t incur printing costs so creating five or ten different posters and putting them out in the world is a comparatively easy thing to do.
We’re at a place right now where there’s practically no such thing as an official key-art for a major release. They seem to “refresh” the image almost weekly. I think in principal that’s a great opportunity for a movie campaign, but, in practice, I don’t always see the through line. It comes off as kind of watered down to me. One element these days that appears to resist that is the title treatment. It seems to be the constant. So at least there’s that.

Title sequence design by F Ron Miller for James Mangold’s films “Logan”, “Walk the Line” and “Wolverine”
“The summer after that was Jaws and, from then on,
I didn’t really need a poster to sell me on a movie.
Posters became an object to celebrate a movie.”
What posters to you have on your wall?
I don’t keep movie posters on the walls. Though I have an ever-growing library on the subject. If I did, and if I could afford it, perhaps one of those incredible French grandes of the 1930s or 40s.
In this time and age, what do you wish people appreciated more?
I’m not sure, but I’ve always been baffled when people say they can’t watch black and white movies. What’s that about?
I’m right there with you. When someone once told me that, the first thing I thought of was that I was happy she wasn’t my friend. Can the public be educated in this regard, do you think?
Who knows. Nobody likes to be told to eat their spinach. I think they’re seriously missing out on something special though.
They certainly are. Thank you, Ron, for this wonderful conversation!
Cover artwork by F Ron Miller for The Criterion edition of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The 39 Steps”
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