How do you sell a story without giving it away?

A movie poster has a difficult job: it needs to make someone curious enough to watch the film without telling them everything that happens.

For The Unwritten Rule, that challenge was amplified by a very limited budget. There was no actor photoshoot to work with, so the poster couldn't rely on character portraits or traditional promotional photography.

Instead, I needed to create a visual world that could communicate mystery, danger, Madrid, and the film's superhero satire using only a handful of elements.

The goal was to make the audience wonder: What happened here? And what is that signal?

Start with the place. Build the story around it.

The Temple of Debod was already part of the film's story—and it became the perfect starting point for the poster.

An ancient Egyptian temple standing in the middle of Madrid creates an unusual visual contrast on its own. At night, it becomes mysterious, cinematic, and slightly otherworldly.

I explored several initial concepts through sketches before landing on the Temple of Debod as the central visual.

From there, I drew inspiration from the dark, atmospheric language of superhero film posters, particularly the visual world of Batman, while adapting it to the film's Spanish setting and satirical tone.

The visual story

The final composition places the Temple of Debod against a dark night sky, transforming a recognizable Madrid landmark into something that feels almost cinematic and supernatural.

The superhero signal became the visual clue.

Rather than simply recreating a familiar comic-book symbol, I created the illuminated “Ñ” as a nod to the film's Spanish identity and its superhero satire.

The beam draws the viewer's eye toward the sky while creating a question at the center of the poster:

Who is calling? And why?

Building a cinematic world from very little.

The final image was heavily manipulated in Photoshop to push the original photograph into the darker, more dramatic atmosphere the concept required.

I worked with lighting, contrast, color, atmosphere, and compositing to transform the location into something that felt closer to a film still than a straightforward photograph of Madrid. The challenge was to make the image feel epic without looking overproduced—appropriate for an independent short film that had a strong story but limited resources.

Let the title do some of the acting.

The typography was inspired by the tall, condensed lettering commonly associated with cinematic and superhero promotional materials.

The oversized title creates immediate hierarchy and gives the poster the presence of a theatrical release, while the restrained typography elsewhere keeps the composition from becoming overwhelming.

The result balances the familiar visual language of a superhero poster with the mystery and darkness of the film itself.

An indie film with a poster that could hold its own.

With limited resources and no actor photography, the final poster gave the short film a cinematic visual identity that could stand on its own.

The Unwritten Rule went on to participate in festivals and screenings including Films on the Road, Cortos con Ñ, and Macabro, ultimately becoming a finalist among productions with significantly larger resources and productions that had received government funding.

For me, that made the project especially rewarding—not because the poster was the reason for the film's success, but because I was able to contribute a visual piece that helped give an independent production the presence it deserved.