TEHRAN -- Three Iranian graphic designers expressed their views on Iran’s recent cinema posters to the Persian service of ISNA on Tuesday. Hossein Khosrojerdi, who designed the posters for the films “Salesman” and “The Weeping Willow”, is convinced that he has not made progress in his career over the past few years, explaining, “The reason is that we have given greater opportunities to commercial cinema and have paid less attention to cultural cinema. And even those with joint works in both commercial and cultural cinema have had fewer opportunities.”

He noted that the main problem is the dearth of knowledge on the part of producers and filmmakers in the field of graphic design and their imposition of their own taste and ideas on graphic designers.

Thus, even if the poster designer is one of the best, he can not create what is in his mind, he lamented.

Since the budget is of prime importance for filmmakers, sometimes they don’t even hire graphic designers and just make their own posters with the help of computer graphics, which of course seems quite easy in their view, he added. On the fact that he has not made many cinema posters over the past few years, he said, “I can not tolerate the views of a filmmaker or a producer being imposed (on me). I believe designing a poster is a different field independent of cinema. But when, for example, filmmakers like Majid Majidi, Ebrahim Hatamikia, or Mohsen Makhmalbaf hire me to create posters for their films, I accept and they are pleased with the end result.” Veteran graphic designer Qobad Shiva said, “I don’t call these things placed on the doors of cinema halls film posters. I call them announcements, since they bear no ideas. Photos of handsome actors are taken and stuck on paper. Actually, the cultural aspect of this profession has been ignored.” Shiva, the designer of the posters for “Beyond Fire” and “Angelica Ship”, has the same attitude as Khosrojerdi. He believes that it is the fault of the producers, saying, “They don’t want to pay professional designers and have accustomed people to seeing these kinds of posters. They repeated this to the point where even if one good thing is produced, people don’t recognize it.”

But graphic designer Behzad Khorshidi, who made the posters for recent movies such as “Octopus”, “In the Name of Father”, “Ferdows Park -- 5 pm”, and “Nocturnal Emissions”, has the opposite view, saying that the field of graphic design has developed in Iran.

A film poster must be an advertisement for the movie, and attracting a larger audience is very important for the producers, he opined. He noted that computers have changed the process of graphic design over the past ten years, saying, “In the beginning, some of the masters like Morteza Momayyez were against it, but they gradually announced that they were not opposed to technology and accepted it.”

Referring to the view of artist Aidin Aghdashlu, he said, “Aghdashlu believes that the problem is not about the fact that one or two superstars are highlighted on a poster. It is the same all over the world. It is important that the posters and their designs have a more artistic and attractive appearance.

“I believe our posters are compatible with our Iranian cinema and nothing less than that,” he said in conclusion.