Aided by a sharp eye for detail and a perfect distillation of the “less is more approach” to poster design, illustrator and graphic designer Matt Needle champions an artistic sensibility seldom seen nowadays. He specialises in editorial illustration, key art and movie posters, where he wisely seeks to favour any design that best conveys a given film’s theme or narrative through effective visual representation, while remaining attuned to the mood of the times. Whether it’s for each and every one of the 25 Bond films, or Yorgos Lanthimos’ Poor Things, he always finds the kernel of an idea or a concept that engages and entices us to watch the film. I have recently talked with Matt for Beneficial Shock! magazine about why the process is more thrilling than the finished work, useful skills he picked up at design school and the Fellini film he wishes he could have done the official poster for.
Could you define the philosophy or approach of your work, Matt?
Everything I work on has the same fundamental approach and end goal. I seek to create something that presents a familiar subject matter in a different light. Whether that’s a gig poster, alternative film artwork, book cover or some other graphic/image making endeavour. Take for example an alternative film poster, of which I work on as self initiated projects in between client work, I love to experiment and create something that’s an expression / personal visual response to the familiar material, hopefully an approach that is intriguing and aesthetically different from what’s out there already.
You can read the full interview here.
