Drew Struzan is a legendary movie poster illustrator, the man behind all the posters we grew up with. He started with legendary titles like Blade Runner, The Thing, and Back to the Future, and continued with Indiana Jones and Star Wars.
Although Drew is not a mainstream name, he is absolutely legendary among nerdy people, ’80s culture lovers, and everyone who was ever touched by his iconic illustrations and paintings. He defined movie poster aesthetic during those years.
So let’s have a look at who Drew Struzan is and how his career as an illustrator developed over the years. It was not always easy, so brace yourself for a good story and a fantastic dose of inspiration—especially if painting, illustration, and graphic design are what you want to pursue in your life too!
It all started with.. one of the Top 100 Album Covers Of All Time
A famous quote from Drew Struzan comes from the time when he was asked what he wanted to do in college. He clearly had artistic talent but had to decide between fine art and illustration.
He chose the latter, and this is what he famously said about it: “I was poor and hungry, and illustration was the shortest path to a slice of bread, as compared to a gallery showing. I had nothing as a child. I drew on toilet paper with pencils – that was the only paper around. Probably why I love drawing so much today is because it was just all I had at the time.”
After graduating, he stayed in LA and landed a job at the design studio Pacific Eye & Ear (PEE). Here he soon started designing album cover art under the direction of Ernie Cefalu for bands such as the Beach Boys, Bee Gees, Black Sabbath, and Alice Cooper. Drew’s cover for Welcome to My Nightmare would later be selected by Rolling Stone as one of the Top 100 Album Covers of all time (and we included it in our Best Album Covers of the 70s)!
The first one-sheets with Pencil Pushers
In the middle of the Seventies, Drew moved on and opened a company with a friend who was involved in the film industry. He started using the airbrush for his illustrations, and soon his fame began to grow thanks to his one-sheets (standard-sized movie posters: 27 x 41 inches) for B-movies. Among the ones to remember of those years are Squirm in 1976 and Empire of the Ants in 1977.
While the quality his work was steadily growing, Drew got his breakthrough in Hollywood. He did so with the famous Circus poster for the 1978 re-release of Star Wars. The involvement with this poster was marginal, as it was commissioned to Drews friend Charles White III, who asked for help, as he was uncomfortable with portraying people. So they shared the work on the poster, one designing machinery, spaceships and robots, the other focusing on the portray of the main characters.
Just at the very end, 20th Century Fox realised in the poster there was not enough room for typography – so the artist came up with the idea of adding the famous poster background: “What can we do to make more space on a poster that’s already been printed? Let’s pretend it’s posted, then they can put the type below the actual poster. We painted Obi-Wan down the side and stuff across the bottom to make it wider and deeper.”
Indiana Jones, Back to the Future & More 80s Cult Films
The breakthrough came in 1981 when Drew Struzan created the international poster for Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Another illustrator, Richard Amsel, was chosen for the US market. For Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Lucas and Spielberg sought the more visceral, emotional style that Drew had perfected. So in 1984, they bet on him, and they won. His poster for Indiana Jones instantly conveyed everything new and wonderful that the film had to offer, cementing an archetypal figure in American popular consciousness.
Robert Zemeckis was already a fan of Drew’s art when he contacted him in the middle of the 80s. “I waited until I made a film good enough to deserve your poster,” he confided to Drew. “I think Back to the Future is that film.”
The idea was simple and intriguingly American, Michael J. Fox is caught just before stepping into the adventure, placing one foot into the gull-wing door of a stainless steel DeLorean. The wheels are on fire, and the light inside the car shines like a signal. The first poster was such a success that Zemeckis enlisted Drew for all three films in the series, solidifying the theme of Marty McFly stepping into adventure with a single step, but never allowing Drew Struzan to stray from the beloved first poster.
For the third film, Zemeckis flew Drew to Northern California for a photo session with Christopher Lloyd and Michael J. Fox, who posed in their outfits from the second film. During the shoot, Michael approached Drew and asked, “Are you THE Drew?” When Drew confirmed, Michael exclaimed, “I’m your biggest fan!” This story is now legend, and any 80s fan out there smiles thinking about two titans of those times, meeting and admiring each other!
He also designed cult movie posters for Blade Runner, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, The Goonies, and many more. Behind every poster is a story, we could tell you how Drew Struzan painted the poster for The Thing in one night, or how he had both the Return of the Jedi and Blade Runner cancelled after completion of the job, despite being epic paintings, much beloved by both the marketing teams working on the films and the fans. But after thirty years of hard work the stories are just too many, we would need so much more of your time to tell them all! But to talk about Drew Struzan is to talk about Star Wars, so let’s have a look at what happened there.
The Posters for George Lucas' Star Wars
After the famous crucifix poster of 1979, Lucasfilm called again in 1982, this time for a first-edition poster that would finally cement Drew’s reputation as the primary interpreter of the Star Wars series. They were preparing to launch the new Star Wars film, initially titled Revenge of the Jedi. Drew created a dark, thrilling poster with Darth Vader looming against a blood-red background, and two figures crossing lightsabers—mortal enemies, father and son.
Everyone involved loved the illustration, and Lucasfilm released the posters early due to long production times. However, a debate arose over the title’s “political correctness,” suggesting it could imply a subliminal statement on U.S. policy regarding the Iran-Iraq conflict. Despite George Lucas’s claims that external pressure was not a factor, the title was changed to Return of the Jedi and the posters were withdrawn.
Many years later, in 1997, the special edition of the Star Wars trilogy was ready, but Lucasfilm was running out of time with different designers’ ideas failing to please George. Finally, he said, “Forget it. Have Drew paint the poster.” When offered the job, Drew suggested creating three posters instead of one, he proposed a triptych for a collective effect. They agreed, but they gave him only three weeks to summarize the iconic trilogy.
Drew had one week to design, draw, and paint each poster, working non-stop through the 1997 festive season, Christmas included. The result was a spectacular triptych celebrating A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.
Drew Struzan was also asked to create posters for the first two episodes of the Star Wars prequel trilogy. His work for The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones highlighted his talent for capturing the essence of the films. These iconic illustrations helped connect the new episodes with the original trilogy, providing a visual continuity that pleased both old and new fans.
Drew Struzan at the turn of the century
The 80s were a most intensive decade, where it is estimated that Drew Struzan illustrated up to 10 movie posters per year. As you can see in the posters above, he really created a stylistic universe that defined the aesthetics of a long and glorious period of cinema history.
After such intense production, the tide changed and with the advent of digital illustration, and the birth of programs like Photoshop, the taste changed towards a different kind of graphic design and movie poster compositions. On top of that, the internet changed the way studios promote their releases, the movie poster being just a fraction of the marketing effort that goes into new movies today.
Drew Struzan was one of Hollywood’s legendary artist, and still is. He officially retired in 2008, but still accepts a gig here and there (we like to imagine he does only what he is actually interest in and what he feel like doing), like the movie poster for Harry Potter, Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy, the new episodes of the Indiana Jones saga, and projects like illutrations, logos and posters for smaller productions.
In an article in Los Angeles Times he said: “Although the studios really have gone to computers, what I’m getting now are young directors that grew up on my work and said, ‘When I do my first movie, I’m going to have Drew do the poster.’ So it’s the next generation calling now.”
Need more Inspiration? Check out more articles on our blog!
If you’re here, it’s probably because you love everything ’80s as much as we do. Whether you’re looking for inspiration for your next creative project, or just browsing to refine your taste, here are a couple more articles we recommend!
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Enjoy!
