The icon­ic film art of Akiko Stehrenberger

If you’ve caught a glimpse of a pro­mo­tion­al movie poster in the last 15 years, chances are you were tak­ing in the work of Akiko Stehren­berg­er, the Los Ange­les-based artist you didn’t know you knew.

Stehren­berg­er has worked on projects for some of cinema’s most impor­tant and influ­en­tial film­mak­ers, trans­lat­ing their unique visions from screen to poster. The list of names includes a long ros­ter of trail­blaz­ers, among them Michel Gondry, Spike Jonze, Jonathan Glaz­er, Har­mo­ny Korine, the Coen broth­ers, Sofia Cop­po­la, David Lynch and Michael Haneke.

At Hat & Beard Press, we’ve long been fans of Stehrenberger’s work, and are thrilled to be pub­lish­ing a new book which will put read­ers at the cen­tre of her process, from con­cept to exe­cu­tion. Stehrenberger’s sto­ry will be told in a way that mir­rors her process, util­is­ing ana­logue and mod­ern tech­niques – includ­ing film, film pho­tog­ra­phy and illus­tra­tion – all in an effort to a bet­ter under­stand what makes her such a vital visu­al artist.

Below is a short extract of an inter­view with Stehren­berg­er as fea­tured in the book, along with a selec­tion of the artist’s favourite posters.

The first time I looked at your work on your site, I thought you’d already cre­at­ed your own mini-Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion of offi­cial movie posters in your own right. Are you used to churn­ing and burn­ing in this medi­um or are you still over­ly ana­lyt­i­cal about everything?

I’m def­i­nite­ly over­ly ana­lyt­i­cal when it comes to my work, but because the dead­lines are so crazy and I’m put on to the next project so quick­ly, I have to com­mit and trust that what I’m doing is right for it. I’m one of those peo­ple that needs dead­lines, oth­er­wise I could work on some­thing for years and years. In that respect, those quick dead­lines actu­al­ly work to my ben­e­fit. There are a hand­ful that I look back on and won­der, ​‘What was I think­ing?’ but for the most part the quick pace has forced me to real­ly trust my instincts and not try to noo­dle some­thing to death.

Is it eas­i­er to work with the stu­dios or the shops that spe­cialise in this stuff? Your process seems like it might be dif­fer­ent depend­ing on who you were work­ing for?

I like inter­chang­ing between the two. What I love about work­ing for a movie poster shop is that it goes so fast and I’ve estab­lished great work process­es with my cre­ative direc­tors. I’m just there to make comps. I can be less respon­si­ble because my work is only a small por­tion of comps pre­sent­ed to the stu­dio by the shop. The stu­dio also doesn’t know it’s mine so there’s less pressure.

Where­as the stu­dios, say, are judg­ing you as a sin­gu­lar design­er and illustrator?

Yes. When I’m work­ing straight with the stu­dio, it’s a much dif­fer­ent pace. They are com­ing to me direct­ly, know­ing my work. Being only one per­son, I offer a very lim­it­ed and focused explo­ration. One might think there is no down­side to this, but there is much more respon­si­bil­i­ty in work­ing in this man­ner. These projects last many months, where­as with a shop there’s a good chance I work on a project and nev­er have to see it again unless my work makes it to the next rounds.

When I’m hired by a shop, my work is being pre­sent­ed with so much oth­er work, so I can be a bit more play­ful because I know oth­er design­ers might be more respon­si­ble. Regard­less of either of these ways of work­ing, I don’t ever do spec work or offer my ideas for free. My ideas come from at least a full day of research and is half the job of an art direc­tor. I either get paid a day rate from the shops, or a project fee from the stu­dios. My time is always account­ed for, so I’m less both­ered if my posters don’t make it to the fin­ish line.

Is there a par­tic­u­lar poster you are sick of talk­ing about or the media obsess­ing over?

I’ve talked about Fun­ny Games a mil­lion times, but at the same time that poster gave me my career and start­ed giv­ing me a name in my indus­try. Out of respect for it, I can talk about it a mil­lion more times. Peo­ple still to this day don’t realise it’s an illustration.

That poster came out and peo­ple were like, ​‘Who is this person?’

Yes, and it came out right when I became a free­lancer and left my full-time posi­tion at that first movie poster shop. I still feel like I have the same aes­thet­ics. I still love the sim­plic­i­ty behind it. I’ll always be very proud of it. I know that peo­ple are just find­ing out about me now because of it, and I’m in an indus­try that gives cred­it to nobody, so I’m lucky that peo­ple even know my name.

Yeah, because your name isn’t even on the poster itself which I’ve always found odd, see­ing as how the end crawl of cred­its of a film seem to sin­gle out every­one, includ­ing the set dog.

It nev­er is. The movie poster design­er is very last on the totem pole. Please don’t under­mine the set dog.

It’s so weird because that’s the num­ber one thing that gives a film visibility.

Exact­ly, but now with social media, movie poster design­ers and illus­tra­tors are def­i­nite­ly start­ing to make the name for them­selves that they couldn’t before.

Let’s talk about how you came up with @doyrivative as a han­dle to pro­mote your work online.

“Doyri­v­a­tive” doesn’t real­ly roll off the tongue eas­i­ly, but it’s some­thing I came up with because I want­ed to start intro­duc­ing my sil­ly art deriv­a­tive of pop cul­ture. The expres­sion ​‘doy’ is just a nicer ver­sion of ​‘duh’ , and I was real­ly excit­ed when my best friend Jamal Gunn Beck­er and I were able to write ​“doy” in such a way that it became a moniker of a sil­ly face to use for my han­dle. Before I had an Insta­gram, I often made birth­day gifts for my friends that fol­lowed the roots of what Doyri­v­a­tive is.

With Insta­gram, Doyri­v­a­tive became a per­son­al project where I make one new piece a week and force myself to post it. Still, to this day, I get anx­i­ety any­time I’m going to post some­thing … but I’m try­ing to train myself to be less self-con­scious about it. Most of those pieces were me just fuck­ing off and not hav­ing to wor­ry about a focus group in the Mid­west judg­ing it. It’s free­dom to release brain farts. It’s not the most elo­quent way of say­ing it, but you get the idea.

I think your sense of humor is the thing that real­ly comes out. It’s reflect­ed in the work. Do you think that’s why you’re good at this medi­um, as a work-in-progress laboratory?

I would hope so. I feel like when­ev­er I have a chance to infuse some kind of tongue-in-cheek in my pieces, I try to do that. I have to remem­ber what I’m inter­est­ed in, too. I love design, I love beau­ti­ful art, but I also love when some­thing cracks me up and doesn’t take itself too seri­ous­ly. I grew up read­ing Mad Mag­a­zine. I always loved not only the amaz­ing skill lev­el of the illus­tra­tions, but the satire sur­round­ing cur­rent events. I think in today’s cli­mate, it couldn’t hurt to light­en the mood a lit­tle bit.

You men­tioned that a lot of the work you do on these posters, these days, starts and ends on the com­put­er, but when you start­ed it was real­ly all done by hand. How was that transition?

I learned on the job and was thrown in the fire. The dead­lines were insane from the start and now they’re con­sis­tent­ly get­ting short­er and short­er. It’s con­stant­ly forc­ing me to learn new tech­niques to do on the com­put­er so I can keep up with these inhu­mane deadlines.

How do you avoid being stressed? What do you do to de-com­press when you’re on these crazy deadlines?

I watch total trash and smoke weed. It’s the only way to turn off my brain. If I were to come home and watch a beau­ti­ful art movie, I’m going to be think­ing, ​“Fuck, what would I do for the poster? How do I emu­late that scene?” It’s just back to work again. It would nev­er end. I need to be able to turn it off.

‘Akiko­mat­ic: The Art of Akiko Stehren­berg­er’ is avail­able to order here.