We recently received some Printer's Proofs from Charlie White. He was the original poster designer along with Drew Struzan for the Star Wars Style D one sheet.
The information below is straight from Charlie White himself, January 2016:
"In April 1977, I was approached by 20th Century Fox to develop a poster for the upcoming film “Star Wars.” I hadn’t yet heard anything about it, and wondered if it would be a low brow sci-fi B movie. They asked me to attend a screening at the Academy Theater, and I was totally captivated. I couldn’t stop talking about it.
As I remember George Lucas wanted a vintage 40s look and style, which suited me well. There being only a brief couple months before the film’s theatrical release, though, time was pretty short to do the work.
I was a fan of the album cover art by the talented Drew Struzan. So I hired him to work on the portraiture while I created the overall design and illustrated the rest of the piece. We presented a pencil sketch to George (unheard of in the movie business, in which the routine was to present a number of fully finished pieces from which studios would choose). He approved it immediately. However, we had only 10 days to produce the final artwork. For some reason, we were allowed to design our own Star Wars logo, so this poster is unique in that respect. The lettering was done by Chuck Smitt.
When we delivered the finished art we were told there wasn’t enough room for copy - a not so little detail that had escaped attention when we initially showed the sketch. Necessity being the mother of invention, I came up with the idea to make it look like a poster already pasted on a wall, with a torn edge at the bottom. The extra space also allowed for the inclusion of Obi Wan Kenobi, whose presence gave added dimension and context to the piece.
When I was at the printers on the press checks I was able to get a package of posters. I had the color bars removed because I didn't want to have to cut them.
It has been a privilege to be a part of Star Wars history, and to have made a significant contribution at the very beginning."
