A poster is a designed piece of work which include both textual and graphic elements, although a poster may be either wholly graphical or wholly text. Posters are designed to be both eye-catching and convey information. Posters may be used for many purposes. They are a frequent tool of advertisers particularly of events, musicians and films and other groups trying to communicate a message.
The style of classic film Noir posters are colorful, dynamic artwork is reminiscent of the covers of pulp detective and crime novels of the 20's and 30's, from which many of the film noir stories were born. Though the movies were black and white, the posters were rich with color. An exception was "Kiss of Death", which had an all black and white poster.
The distinctive artwork characteristic of these posters was paint based, rather than photography based, as movie ads are today. The results are colorful, striking and captivating. These posters were usually made by a creative team, where one person created the concept, the next person did the drawings, and still another person did the wording.
