Film & Music Posters - How we select vintage wall art design

The all encompassing term "wall art" is becoming a more prevalent shorthand for what were once

Dark Side of the Moon - Pink Floyd

exclusively referred to as art prints and posters.  Like when what we thought should be called fine art by NZ painters a decade ago started getting referred to as "kiwiana" alongside the more obvious tiki paintings, four square man etc New Zealand Fine Prints are happy to move with the times and be guided by our customers what they would like to call what we sell even if this new phrase takes a bit of getting used to!

One of the advantages of the expanding definition of wall art (eg from framed prints to wall charts, prints on canvas and even wall decals) is we have been able to expand what we sell beyond the traditional reproduction prints of paintings, maps etc into other things that can go on the walls of kiwi homes and offices, but without straying too far from our core values as a business.  It seems obvious that those folks who show more than an average interest in art would also be interested in music, theatre and film and those of us on our wholesale buying team certainly are into the broader arts as well for sure.

Poster for Fritz Lang's Metropolis

But we believe that delivering value to customers is not just in a good quality item from a production standpoint, it also about selling decoration that will endure not just physically but also continue to be enjoyed as an artwork (ok, wall art) for many years.  This means selling prints by artists who have something to say, prints of places that mean something to New Zealanders and trying not to promote more ephemeral  watered down or generic designs that are, as we say, to match the curtains.   We don't want you to buy an artwork for your walls that "fashions out" really quickly.

So as we grow our range of film and music wall posters we had to devise a criteria that would satisfy demand for a broader range of poster choices without going too far down the path of stocking modern day music posters created for fans (or more cynically created by publishers to cash in on what's popular right now). Drawing a line between what we call the "social expression" market (the teenager whose choice of music or movie posters are a visual shorthand to tell people what kind of person they are) and the broader decorative - ie wall art - market where a poster is there both for its aesthetic merits as well as for its content/subject or design theme.

The Supremes UK Tour Poster

Our wholesale team have therefore decided that we won't - at least initially - stock music posters that are designed purely to demonstrate that you are a fan of a contemporary band or a singer or love a just released film. Musically these are the posters that are a photograph of the act (or actor) doing their thing on stage/film set or showing their attitude or style accompanied with the name of the group, rapper or singer or film.   Given the size of the New Zealand market and the order minimums that make sense when importing posters it just doesn't work for us to try and pick trends, there is nothing less saleable than a cutting edge music poster after the band's popularity has peaked!  But we believe there is a sweet spot where a music poster captures both the spirit of the band/singer with an iconic retro/vintage design aesthetic that makes it more broadly interesting than just to fans of the group. So we are stocking retro or vintage designs that have stood the test of time already and that we believe will continue to resonate for the life of the posters on your walls.

Obviously we would like to have a diversity of designs and acts from around the world and across different genres, so we have lined up four different wholesale suppliers across the US, Australia and Europe to try and achieve this aim.

We think in particular that vintage music poster designs for concerts and album releases are true to the spirit of New Zealand Fine Prints, they fit with our extensive range of vintage travel, tourism and advertising posters from what are now well-known graphic designers. This is where we offer a good quality reproduction of an authentic poster design, a replica as close as we can get to the original - ie without Photoshopping the imperfections.

Illustrating this post are examples of some of the new movie and music posters that are now in stock at New Zealand's wall art specialists since 1966, please check out our music and film poster collection to see everything we currently have for sale.