Film & Theatre Poster Design, Key Art /
Gary Kelly Creative is a boutique design studio specialising in film poster design and key art for independent filmmakers, production companies and studios. The studio has created poster work for a wide range of productions across the UK, US and Canada, with clients including the legendary filmmaker Wim Wenders and Curzon Cinema.
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Film and theatre poster design for filmmakers, theatre companies and production studios
As a kid, Gary’s bedroom walls were covered with movie posters. Not photographs. Paintings. Hand-drawn universes you could disappear into. Two in particular had him completely transfixed. The Goonies and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. He'd stare at them for hours, imagining what lay just beyond the frame, feeling the tension and the excitement of a story not yet seen.
That sense of wonder still drives every poster the studio makes.
A great poster has one job: make a stranger care about your film or production before they know a single thing about it. In a cinema lobby, on a festival wall, in a theatre foyer or a streaming thumbnail, it has a fraction of a second to stop someone in their tracks. That is an enormous amount of pressure to place on a single image. It demands more than good design. It demands genuine understanding of story, tone and what makes a production worth seeing.
Every project begins with the work itself. Its mood, its world, its emotional core. The design follows from that. Never templated, never generic, always built around the specific truth of the project in front of us.
What the studio designs for film and theatre:
Film poster design and key art
Theatrical one-sheet and quad poster design
Film festival poster design
Teaser and campaign poster design
Streaming and VOD thumbnail art
DVD and digital home entertainment design
Theatre and stage production poster design
Press and promotional materials
Whether the production is heading to a festival, going into theatrical distribution, launching on a streaming platform or opening on stage, the visual identity deserves to be treated with the same care and craft as the work itself. The studio works with film and theatre companies and production studios of all sizes, bringing the same story-driven approach to the stage as to the screen.
Poster design, with story at its core.
When I was a kid, my bedroom walls were covered with movie posters - they were windows into other worlds. Two, in particular, had me spellbound: The Goonies and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. They weren’t just decoration, they were hand drawn universes. I’d stare for hours, imagining the stories, feeling the tension, the excitement, wondering what lay beyond the frame.
That same sense of wonder still fuels my work today.
A truly cinematic poster isn’t just a piece of design – it’s storytelling in a single frame. It captures the essence of a film: its energy, tone, and soul. It has to command attention in every format, from a backlit cinema lobby to a scrolling feed. Whether stripped back and minimal or rich with layered detail, the best posters have one thing in common – they make you feel something before a single line of dialogue is spoken.
Approach & philosophy
Over the years, I’ve created posters for a wide range of projects. Each design is tailored with its own unique tone and identity, always with a focus on: strong visual narrative, clean, intentional composition, and a lasting emotional impression.
The portfolio above is a selection of work that reflects this approach, crafted for filmmakers, studios, and creative agencies who value purposeful design and meaningful visual storytelling.