Drew Struzan, whose lush, hand-painted movie posters helped define the modern blockbuster image, has died at 78, his family confirmed to CBS News. For more than four decades his posters – evocative, cinematic canvases built around character-driven portraits and luminous typography – served as the public face of some of Hollywood’s biggest franchises and, in many cases, created the lasting mental image audiences carry of a film.

Struzan’s portfolio ran the gamut from science fiction epics to intimate dramas, and included signature work for Star Wars, the Indiana Jones series and the Back to the Future trilogy. He painted more than 1,000 posters in a career that bridged the heyday of illustrated advertising and the era of glossy photographic campaigns. His technique — a meticulous blend of oil, airbrush and colored pencil — produced a warmth and depth that photographic posters rarely matched, and that helped characters feel both heroic and human.

“Drew’s posters didn’t sell tickets so much as extend a film’s storytelling,” said a longtime art director who worked with Struzan. “He created mythic portraits that invited you into a story before the lights went down.” That invitation, critics and colleagues say, is the essence of his legacy: posters that functioned not just as promotion but as cultural artifacts.

Struzan’s death draws attention to broader industry shifts. Beginning in the late 1980s and accelerating with digital photography in the 1990s, studios largely abandoned illustrated posters in favor of photographic images deemed more immediate and marketable. Yet the last decade has seen a revival of interest in illustrated and limited-edition posters, driven by collectors, boutique studios and filmmakers seeking distinctive branding. Struzan’s work, much of it reissued and highly collectible, helped catalyze that nostalgia-driven market, where original prints and artist-signed variants fetch thousands at auction.

Beyond commerce, Struzan’s art played a central role in shaping cultural memory. Moviegoers often recall characters and mood through the lens of his paintings: a young hero’s profile, a villain’s shadow, a dramatic skyline rendered in molten color. Those images have been used in countless retrospectives, home-video releases and merchandising, demonstrating how commercial poster art can become central to a film’s iconography.

His passing arrives as the creative community grapples with a different technological disruption: AI-generated imagery. For many illustrators and cultural commentators, Struzan’s death underscores the enduring value of human touch. “There’s a soul in a hand-painted stroke that algorithms don’t replicate,” said an independent poster artist reflecting on Struzan’s influence. The debate over authenticity, labor and compensation in visual culture is likely to intensify as studios and licensors explore cheaper, faster production methods.

Drew Struzan’s posters were never mere advertisement; they were portals to the stories that followed. In a media landscape increasingly defined by ephemeral content and algorithmic design, his work stands as a reminder of the lasting power of craftsmanship to shape popular imagination and preserve the emotional center of cinema. The industry he helped visually steer now faces the task of reconciling that artisanal legacy with the technologies and market pressures of the 21st century.