Key art, also known as key visual, is the artwork which is repeated across media such as posters, print, television and digital advertisements, streaming or download

thumbnails Thumbnails are reduced-size versions of pictures or videos, used to help in recognizing and organizing them, serving the same role for images as a normal text index (publishing), index does for words. In the age of digital images, visual search ...

, and game or film

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

Blu-Ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...

box covers. Key visuals are defined in the field of

media studies Media studies is a discipline and field of study that deals with the content, history, and effects of various media; in particular, the mass media. Media studies may draw on traditions from both the social sciences and the humanities, but it mos ...

as "functional equivalents to keywords" that "emerge, or... are strategically produced and distributed... and considered worth being archived, remembered, called for and used as a major element in (audio-) visual horizons of actions and means of co-ordination or (ex-)communication for some time." Key art is most commonly understood as advertising for entertainment media such as films, television and video games.

Film

The term key art was defined by ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...

'' (who awarded the annual

Key Art Awards The Clio Entertainment Awards (formerly the Key Art Awards) is an awards program by Clio that recognizes "excellence in marketing and communications" across the entertainment industry—i.e., the industries of film, television, live entertainment ...

, founded in 1972) as “the singular, iconographic image that is the foundation upon which a movie’s marketing campaign is built.” Nicole Purcell, the president of

Clio In Greek mythology, Clio ( , ; ), also spelled Kleio, Сleio, or Cleo, is the muse of history, or in a few mythological accounts, the muse of lyre-playing. Etymology Clio's name is derived from the Greek root κλέω/κλείω (meaning ...

(who incorporated the Key Art Awards into their own awards in 2011), explained that key art was historically understood to be movie posters, but has expanded especially due to the influence of digital media. In 2005, key art from '' The Silence of the Lambs'' and '' The Shining'' were voted to be the most iconic key art of the previous 35 years. Key art is often shaped by contracts with actors, directors and others, and so post-release adjustments to advertising can be limited by these contractual agreements.

Television

Unlike book art and film posters, television key art is horizontal and is most often produced at 16:9 ratio.

Netflix Netflix is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service. The service primarily distributes original and acquired films and television shows from various genres, and it is available internationally in multiple lang ...

state that their research indicates that people focus on key art for 1.8 seconds, and that such artwork is the biggest influence upon their viewers' decisions to engage with content. Netflix key art is currently thumbnail- rather than design-based, as artwork is shaped by user activities and demographics, and built by algorithms extracting screenshots from video.

Video games

In video games, key art is produced earlier and helps to convey a vision of the game to the team of artists working to develop it, as well as then being used in advertising and on box art.

References

{{film-award-stub Film and video terminology Film advertising material Marketing techniques