A Hard Day's Night (United Artists, 1964). Poster Preliminary Layout (18" X 24").
This very rare and very fun rough preliminary layout consists of one piece of artist's tracing paper stapled to a piece of thicker paper. It was meant to give a general idea of the poster's design showing the position of text and illustrations. The elements used here are pencil, and black and gray paint. This piece was created by the United Artists Publicity Department in 1964 in anticipation of the biggest hit of the year to reach the US shores. This rough concept was most likely for the US one sheet poster for the Beatles' film. The hand-drawn lettering in the bottom half of this sketch is very close to the completed artwork, but the upper design was completely changed, save for cartoon figures of the screaming girls, in the final design. As one can see from the pencil notation - the "OH!s" were going to be changed to "YEAH!s" before the concept was dropped altogether. This "YEAH! YEAH! YEAH!" concept was actually used on the German and Japanese posters for the release of the film. The Beatles' heads are a gray paper pasted onto tracing paper with the faces painted on the gray paper. This rough layout was saved from the dumpster when discarded by United Artists in the early 1970s, and is a unique piece of music history showing the evolution of this great ad campaign. A unique piece of art, it is an essential piece of Beatles history. Some light wrinkling and faint stains on the bottom and right borders. Fine/Very Fine.