Matt Willey: The Wrestler

Matt Willey: The Wrestler From Matt Willey, Creative Director at Studio8 Design in the UK and that meticulous detailer of the process of page design (still one of our favorite videos at HQ), thoughts on some classics from the poster vault:
I wrote a short blog recently for Eye magazine about some old boxing posters from the 30's and 40's that I had found. They are very appealing to me for many reasons; the typefaces used, the arrangement of the type, the straightforwardness of them, the colours. So, from boxing to wrestling....

These wrestling posters are from a little later, the 1950's I think, but they follow a similar aesthetic. They are both printed by the same press in Warwickshire. I'm fairly sure they would have been responsible for not only the printing of these posters but also the layout and type setting. You can tell they've been done by the same hand; the alternating colours, the coloured bars that make up the frame. As with the boxing posters I presume that the arrangement of the type on these posters is a result of a simple need to get all this information on, nothing more fancy than that. I like the mix of typefaces used in some of the names. The C and M in Cunningham, the heavy characters at the beginning and end of 'Burke' and 'Doug' and 'Joyce'. I've spent a long time looking at and enjoying these posters. I think they're wonderful.

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  • Grant Glas

    Great posters! They remind me of Paula Scher's work for the New York Shakespeare Festival that introduced a new identity for the Public Theater. This type of work is brilliant - their simplicity is what makes them so fascinating. As Matt noted very straightforward.

  • Scott Dadich

    Matt is truly a genius designer—I just adore Futu! Great to see the thinking behind the love...these are gorgeous.

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