If DONDA Designed This Year's Oscar Nominated Movie Posters

What if Kanye West's design collective unleashed its vision upon Hollywood?

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Complex Original

Image via Complex Original

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Depending on who you ask, the Oscars either got the Best Picture race as close to right as they’ve been in years this time around, or this year's big nominees are yet another group of basic awards-baiting films that fail to accurately represent the best film really had to offer in 2014. One thing’s basic for sure: the posters. The art of the one-sheet is slowly but surely becoming lost. When’s the last time a great movie had a truly fire accompanying poster that you just had to frame in your crib, let alone achieve iconic status?


Meanwhile, design prophet Kanye West and his DONDA team are quietly revamping the album cover. Since Kanye officially announced the design collective three years ago, they’ve yet to achieve his grand goal of contributing, designing and innovating all realms of pop culture and society. But they’ve made major headway in music via some truly engrossing album art. DONDA's approach is simple: retreat from self-serving, over-informative album covers and instead relay the theme with a super minimalist image that relates either literally (The Pinkprint cover features a pink fingerprint) or extremely metaphorically (see, a moth for Lil Wayne’s I Am Not a Human Being II or a bar code for Pusha T's My Name Is My Name). Looking at DONDA’s album work got us thinking: why haven’t they been commissioned by Hollywood yet? It seems like the next logical step in Yeezus’ worldwide takeover.

In honor of the impending Academy Awards, we imagined what the eight best picture nominees would look like if DONDA designed their posters and brought them to life just to show you what the film game’s missing. Take a look at what we’re sure would be Kanye West approved images below. If these are truly the Best Pictures, the most artistic achievements film delivered last year (and that's still up for debate), then they deserve the most artistic promotion. In the words of the man himself, respect the artistry. Trust us, these films have never looked more interesting.

Artwork by Danny Scanzoni

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