Simple line art, or is there more? The key art for Tetsuya Mariko's New York City-set drama, Dear Stranger, has a few interesting textural things going on beyond its doodle-in-the-margin first glance.
First is the subtle texture, like a badly painted wall in a cheap apartment background, with bubbled surface just barely visible. Second is the faces of key characters that revel themselves almost like a 'magic eye' poster from the 1990s. And, third is the notebook-like title typography, with its 'learning to print' guidelines, and water-distressed text.
In the film, a Japanese man and Taiwanese-American wife's immigrant lives unravels when their son disappears. The kidnapping reveals hidden secrets, testing their emotional limits and moral boundaries.
For something that could give off the (reductive) vibe of 'gimme ten minutes and I could do that,' it is anything but. This poster offers so many reasons to look a bit closer. Notice how the two faces are intentionally 'connected' by the line at the bottom of the design.
Designer Aicon ("THE HUMAN UNIVERSE IN NEO CLASSIC") has brought this design to movie posters before, with the Japanese key art of Joachim Trier's The Worst Person In The World. I look forward to seeing more of their work popping up in the future.