When we travel by a bus or a car or ride a two-wheeler or when we go on foot, there is one 'stationary' thing that just does not miss our eyes. It is the wall poster. A hoarding placed on top of a huge building may miss your attention. But, a cinema poster on either side of a road just does not. A cinema poster is a silent advertiser, and yet the one that draws the crowds to the cinema theatre. A poster also gives the curious onlookers' i.e., the 'prospective' audience some idea about a film, well ahead of its release. No one exactly knows the birthplace as well as the date of birth of a poster. But, a poster is not one preserved for poster-ity. Its life span is as uncertain as that of the film it publicises about.
One day you see a poster of 'Azaad' and the next day you will find (not necessarily to your surprise) that it has been replaced by a poster of 'Nuvve kaavaali'. In the good old days, a cinema poster was a regular 'graceful' acceptor of cattle-dung when the fans associations of top bracket heroes preferred to air their dislike of the 'rival' hero by 'profusely' hurling dung at the 'gullible' poster. Those were the days when there were very few newspapers and fewer literates in the State. And the wall poster was the obvious choice for the distributors of a film to publicise a preview of a film. It is like a pharos, which guides the mariners on the high seas. There were days when wall poster was the only way of communication. There were no TV channels and fewer newspapers. The reach of news papers was also to some towns. Neither the papers nor the villagers bothered about each other those days. Theatre managers used to paste posters on both sides of a bullock cart or a horse-cart and make it go round the villages and towns, blaring out the songs of the films. Some times even few good announcers or singers used to be sent along with the cart to draw crowds. Gone were the days of bullock carts. There are now newspapers reaching every nook and corner of the land and countless TV channels to send the message of the film producer across. But the importance of the poster has not diminished.
The poster plays as vital a role as that of the story or the Director of the film. It has to give the audience a glimpse of the story line but yet conceal the suspense part of it. You will know whether the film is a Historical, Mythological, Suspense, Horror or a love triangle only through the poster. The entire world of film production has given importance to the art of poster designing and fine-tuned it over the years. Indian cinema is second to none in poster designing. One can understand the significance of poster designing by the fact that Satyajit Ray personally designed the posters of some of his films. Great directors like Shyam Benegal, Govind Nihlani, Girish Karnad and others sit with the artist and have the design made to their requirement. Artists have to strive, to satisfy both the directors who have good taste as well as the ordinary audience at the same time. Telugu film Industry has also contributed its mite to the development of poster designing in the country. Several stalwarts made their mark in the designing industry. T.V.S. Sarma, Bapu, Ketha, Eswar, Bharani, Saragam (Satyanarayana, Rama Rao and Gangadhar - who later got separated and started their own studios) Brahmanandam, Dawood are some of the outstanding artists who contributed their mite to the emergence of the modern poster designing technique. Interestingly none of these famous men had any formal education or for that matter even formal training in the art. Bapu, the legendary artist, lampoonist and film director has revolutionised the art of lettering in posters. He has introduced a simple manuscript style into Telugu posters throwing the traditional well chiseled round letters into oblivion. Now the Bapu style of lettering is being religiously followed for even the film credits. Even computer software experts introduced the Bapu script in their packages.
In the earlier days different styles of lettering used to be adopted for different films. Very ornamental and decorative style of letters used to be written for the credits of historical and mythological films. Same  lettering used to appear even on wall posters. The style of designing also had undergone a change of sorts over the years. During the early days, the producers and directors used to insist that the posters would have to depict the entire star cast of the film. Now the stress is more on the theme, the message and the purpose of the film. This is the reason why you might find some of the old posters a little funny. But they did serve the purpose they were created for - drawing crowds to the cinema. T.V.S. Sarma and Ketha (studio Ketha and Ketha arts) were the pioneers of film publicity industry. But it was Ketha who was an institution, churning out artist after artist from his art 'factory'. The later day popular designers like Satyanarayana,Gangadhar, Rama Rao, 

Eswar and countless others were his disciples.  Ketha once worked for the films of 'difficult to impress' legend N.T. Rama Rao. There was a time when producers of an NTR film had to employ only the technicians approved by him. And NTR never gave his nod to any one before a microscopic assessment. Ketha was one of the lucky few who enjoyed the confidence of the great artiste. The making of a poster offers an interesting story. The producer and director of a film are generally preoccupied with the shooting schedules and find little time to ponder over the finer aspects of a poster. Only after completion of the film do they turn their attention to the publicity aspects, which include designing of the posters. But the designer has to be on his toes all the time and plan his publicity strategy ever since he is briefed of the storyline of a film. He has to regularly go to the studio, watch the shooting, take a look at the album made by the still photographers and satisfy himself that there are good stills, useful for publicity designs. If not, he has to request the producer for a special photo session every now and then to get relevant photographs for use in posters and news paper publicity designs. An artist is not only told the story but also given some idea of the different characters of the film. This information enables the artist to set his priorities right while planning the design. Keeping the poster publicity in view, still photographer takes photographs at the end of each shooting session. In the good olden days, even separate call sheets were given by the artistes for photo sessions. This is no longer possible as most artistes are busy, attending one shoot in the morn and another in the afternoon. The publicity designer has to take care not to expose certain getups of the artistes to the audience, that may reveal the suspense of the film. The artist also should know about the visage of the lead stars and suitable angle for a photograph. He has to avoid such angles as they may de-glamorize and thus embarrass the artistes. Hence the publicity artiste is shown the film separately. The publicity artist first draws miniature rough sketches of the posters and gets the approval of the producer and director. In some cases, even popular heroes insist on seeing the designs. No heroine however is known to have exercised this 'privilege'. After the design is approved, the designer orders the stills quoting the number given by the still photographer to each still and specifying the size of the print required. After the prints are received, they are cut out as per the specifications of the design and the background done up in colour using some times a brush and some times a spray gun. The artist shows his creativity in doing the background. The pasting of the stills on the hard board and the lettering work is generally done by the assistants of the artist, while the designer himself does the background.
The emblem and the type of lettering are decided by the director, producer and the publicity artist. For the past several years, publicity artists have been producing exotic and eye-catching 'spectacles' in their field.

The poster of 'Bahudurapu Baatasari' (which literally means 'a man who sets out on a long journey') stands out as a good example of this. When the poster was planned, it was suggested that the shadow of ANR's figure should be shown to have cast a long shadow, indicating that the man had to travel long distances, justifying the title of the film. The publicity artist plans the titles of the film and also endeavors to show glimpses of special effects and graphics if any, on the poster. Apart from Ketha, Gangadhar,Eswar,Rama Rao Arts, Ajay, Dawod, Lanka Bhasker A.S.Murthy, are the leading publicity artists both at Madras and Hyderabad. The next time you look at a street-site cinema poster, have a heart to appreciate the creativity and hard work that have gone into the making of it. And, fans of heroes, please make sure that you do not fling dung at the wall posters, in a fit of hatred towards the 'rival heroes'.