Otis College Alum Dawn Baillie’s Movie Poster Exhibition Travels to New Venue
The alum and trustee discusses her “surreal” retrospective and how she pays it forward by mentoring and hiring Otis College students and graduates.
Dawn Baillie (’86 BFA Communication Arts, Illustration) has been designing movie posters for more than 30 years. But the ethos behind her craft hasn’t changed. “I think about design the same as I ever did,” she says. “What is the essence of the film? How can a film experience be distilled to a single idea to celebrate its release to the public? Can we make an image that would be the first image you recall when you think about the film in the future?” For much of her work, the answer to that last question is yes.
Baillie is the creative force behind some of the entertainment industry’s most iconic movie posters, including those for Dirty Dancing (her first professional project, in 1987) and 1998’s Silence of the Lambs, which was named the best film poster of the past 35 years at the 2006 Key Art Awards. Since Baillie co-founded BLT Communications in 1992 the entertainment design agency has brought three decades of cinema to life with posters for everything from Sleepless in Seattle to Barbie. (In 2022, BLT Communications became a 100-percent employee-owned company.)
Baillie’s breadth of work is widely recognized and was recently celebrated with a
retrospective exhibition, The Anatomy of a Movie: The Work of Dawn Baillie, at the Poster House in New York. A selection of the exhibition is now on view at
the Jacob Burns Film Center in New York. It’s a “surreal” experience, she says. “I never expected to have a show
like this. It was lovely. I feel very lucky that my career has been what it is.”
Angelina Lippert, the show’s curator, says Baillie’s style is defined by its “effortless simplicity.”
Baillie shares a different perspective: “I like to make sure a poster is simple in its concept, style, communication. I don’t know if it is effortless. It feels like a lot of effort on my end,” she says. “When you are working on a film project it is a collaboration with colleagues, a studio creative executive, a filmmaker, a producer, a costumer, a letterer—many designers of all sorts. When it is all said and done, a lot of hands have touched a poster, so it is hard to claim a singular style.”
A professor at Otis gave me the chance to make a movie poster for a senior assignment, and I am grateful. I might not have been able to follow this path without his encouragement.
Whether she views it as singular or not, her style began to take shape during her time at Otis, which helped lay the foundation for her trajectory, thanks especially to the support she received. “Everett Peck, a professor at Otis, gave me the chance to make a movie poster for a senior assignment, and I am grateful,” she says. “I might not have been able to follow this path without his encouragement.”
She channels her gratitude by paying it forward, making mentorship a focus of her current work: “I’d like my career to continue to grow in that way,” she says. She also gives back to Otis in a multitude of ways. Since graduating, Baillie has done numerous design class visits and speaking engagements and is a current member of Otis’s Board of Trustees. “There’s a wealth of talent and brain power on the board that makes me feel very puny,” she says.
She also helped found Access: A Netflix x Otis Entertainment Certificate Program. Launched in Fall 2023, the program supports students from underserved communities with full-tuition scholarships and access to entry-level jobs in entertainment marketing. It’s work she views as incredibly important. “I received scholarships and grants when I attended Otis; without that support, I wouldn’t be where I am today,” she says. “I am eternally grateful for the opportunity I was given and am honored to be able to give back. I’m still exploring ways that I can give back beyond what I do.”
Another way Baillie supports Otis students is by hiring graduates to work at BLT Communications. One of the things they bring to the table is “a good knowledge of art history. Otis has a great Foundation program that teaches skills that are applicable to any discipline,” she says. “The main thing we look for is versatility, tenacity, and an ability to pivot directions at a moment’s notice. Also, to be able to hear and respond to critiques is immeasurable.”
The entertainment industry “feels particularly in flux right now,” Baillie says. But she has advice for students looking to carve a path similar to her own. “Look to your colleagues in your cohort. Is there a short film from a fellow filmmaker you can make a poster for? Is there a band you know that you can make a gig poster for? A toy ad? A fashion line poster? A poster for a ceramicist? Collaborate!” she says. “Grow with your contemporaries. Find a film that you are passionate about and make five to eight posters for that one film. Show how you would reach different audiences. Show that you can think.”
With nearly four decades of experience to look back on, Baillie can consider her career as a whole and think about what she wants her work to evoke for years to come. "I’d like my legacy to be that of really caring," she says. "Caring about everyone involved, as well as every square inch of the poster."
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