Announcing the Winners of the Ultimate 80s Movie Poster Contest

By SitePoint Offers November 19, 2015

There are certain numbers that always stick with you:

21 gigawatts of power needed to send Doc and Marty back to the future.
2 classic blunders: never get involved in a land war in Asia and never get involved in a battle of wits with a Sicilian when death is on the line.
2029: the year from which Kyle Reese comes to save Sarah Connor.

But here at SitePoint, there’s one number that really sticks out to us right now:

6,095

That’s the number of entries we received for our Ultimate 80’s Movie Poster Contest! Yes, we are serious. And don’t call us, “Shirley”.

We’re grateful to GraphicStock and 99Designs for teaming up with us in this incredible giveaway.

We’d also like to thank all the designers who submitted work and made this a smashing success. To gain access to over 300,000 fully-licensed stock images, including many of the images used to create the posters below, sign up now at GraphicStock.com for only $99 per year.

Now, without further ado, it’s time to announce the winners.

[insert epic “In The Air Tonight”-like drum roll]

1st Place Winner ($5,000 Cash Prize): The Martian by ultrastjarna

The Martian by ultrastjarna

2nd Place Winner ($1,000 Cash Prize): Drive by bntek

Drive by bntek

Runners Up (free year of GraphicStock):

Runner up #1: Her by AikDesign

Her by AikDesign

Runner up #2: Ex Machina by A.a.a|i

Ex Machina by A.a.a|i

Runner up #3: Top Gun by ABET317

Top Gun by ABET317

Runner up #4: The Breakfast Club by LQDesignLLC

The Breakfast Club by LQDesignLLC

Runner up #5: Jobs by Mac”

Jobs by Mac”

Runner up #6: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off by CKD73

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off by CKD73

Runner up #7: The Goonies by Eastwood Studio

The Goonies by Eastwood Studio

Runner up #8: The Social Network by wiktia

Runner up #9: Memoirs of a Geisha by bravoboy

Memoirs of a Geisha by bravoboy

Runner up #10: The Karate Kid by Sebastian Roy

The Karate Kid by Sebastian Roy

Congratulations to our winners! To quote Ghostbusters, “You came, you saw, you kicked its ass!”

80's movie, movie poster, movie poster design

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Ronam Bonfim

Congratulations to the winners!!
soundsalright

I don’t understand most of them don’t look like 80’s. Have you ever seen 80’s posters? They are nothing like them and don’t even get me started on picking that as winning design.
Ricardo Gelschleiter

Loved The Goonies Poster! There is any chance that i get it in hight res for printing?
blakk83

This contest was an absolute joke. The majority of them followed ‘minimal’ design and very few (if any) actually followed 80’s design styles, and even worse most of the designs didn’t even pay attention to the rules. Even the winning design is seriously lacking the 80’s edge, but whatever, i’m just a bitter loser i guess? I doubt I’ll waste my time entering into another one of your “contests”…
- http://www.adconcept.us/wp AD Concept
  
  LOL…i think we are two thinking the same thing!
- http://pertama.tumblr.com TYPO
  
  They just take all our example design to remake themself. I was thinking: $5000 that too much for a merely bluff. And see? A small site for announcing “hey, pay me a year and this photo stocks are yours.” NEVER MIND, dude.
Kevin Francis

Feel like a winning poster design should have emulated a Drew Struzan movie poster, but…congratulation to the winners.
James Donnalbel

Congratulations to the winners, but really? 80’s? Since when minimal styles is the 80’s posters style?
Lara Zakarian

The Drive poster was a thing of 80’s beauty! Loved the colors used, the font, stock images used, and the creativity used to put it all together. The runners up are also awesome. The Breakfast Club-Awesome job! Super creative with the quotes from the film. The Social Network was a great take from a recent movie designed into an 80’s theme. Great job to all the designers.
- soundsalright
  
  Sorry but I disagree. Drive poster may consist some of 80s elements (colours, glows, lines) but not quite well executed and he’s wearing modern sweater )). (could’ve been erased). If you see some other designs you’ll know what I mean. The breakfast club is witty I have to admit but not 80’s look remove the title and ask for another’s opinion see if they can decide which years look it is. Way modern for 80’s. The social network design is also not well executed, the colours look weird as well as the shape of the pc.
- soundsalright
  
  Sorry but I disagree. Drive poster may consist some of 80s elements (colours, glows, lines) but not quite well executed and he’s wearing modern sweater )). (could’ve been erased). If you see some other designs you’ll know what I mean. The breakfast club is witty I have to admit but not 80’s look remove the title and ask for another’s opinion see if they can decide which years look it is. Way modern for 80’s. The social network design is also not well executed, the colours look weird as well as the shape of the pc.
Nigah

No doubt the wining design is graphicstock personal choice otherwise its not follow the brief I fail to find 80’s look in winning designs, let me know have anyone see a film poster without credits?
Nigah

One thing more that we are missing Graphicstock want to commercialize their website among designers around their object has been achieved infect they don’t need any poster at all so they can award anyone according to their choice rather than brief.
- soundsalright
  
  Definitely. Few days lots of people dug around their web, registered, wasted hours to choose an item to use. Lots of unique user activity, members so on. The worst thing is they put a title on it “80’s poster” without knowing anything about it apparently. Like they are mocking with designers
http://www.spacedesign.hu Mark

These are nice ones, but don’t look likes 80’s.
- http://pertama.tumblr.com TYPO
  
  Nice sharp-soft compliment.
Bill

Congratulations to all the winners! It’s fun to see people’s creativity when put to the challenge. Unfortunately I can’t extend the same congratulations to Sitepoint, 99Designs or GraphicStock for their contest. I am a (now) software designer that started out in the 80’s. When I spotted your contest I thought it would be great fun. I laughed and cringed a bit when I saw entries with copyright violations and a lack of understanding of “80’s style.” I wasn’t very surprised when additional clarification/rules were announced mid-contest. Not very kosher, but needed to be done, right? But I am downright disappointed at some of the winning selections. It’s obvious that if I had completed my entry (the entry period was too short for my schedule) I most likely would not have been in the top entries as it seems the judges picked winners more on “I like” than contest parameters. It started out fun, but ended up being either ill-conceived or poorly executed. Sorry guys, thumbs down.
- James Donnalbel
  
  I am with you!
- James Donnalbel
  
  I am with you!
Gianna Doh

If these were the winners and runner-ups it makes me wonder what the other 6,083 entries looked like. Surely there had to be other designers who submitted who actually followed the rules and created an 80’s style movie poster.
- soundsalright
  
  Some of the designs were good. At least they obeyed the style and rules. My personal favourite was the squid poster. Check that out and compare with so called winners.
  - Gianna Doh
    
    Just looked, there definitely were enough good designs that followed the rules that they should have been at least runner ups if not the actual winners. Next time they should just have a regular movie poster contest if they aren’t even going to adhere to their own rules. Feel bad for the people who wasted their time and talent to get beat out by non 80’s designs.
- soundsalright
  
  Some of the designs were good. At least they obeyed the style and rules. My personal favourite was the squid poster. Check that out and compare with so called winners.
soundsalright

Doc! What the hell is a gigawatt? ))
soundsalright

Doc! What the hell is a gigawatt? ))