Popcorn: The Flavours of Typography in Film

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History of Type in Film During the early stages of film production, silent films were heavily reliant on letter cards (or inter-titles) which provided context. These cards were the responsibility of the lettering artist who worked with the scriptwriter and director to create a visually cohesive narrative so the audience could understand the story.

As time progressed the development of film lead to the introduction of films with audio, commonly called ‘talkies’.

The next biggest breakthrough was the development of the title sequence, which some described as having a detrimental effect on the significance of type. The introduction of new and engaging visual content, diverted the attention from the type used, to the visual techniques used. This new era of titling arguable shed new light on the possibilities for type within the film industry, as new creative approaches arose alongside the development of new film technologies.

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This era of the 1950’s was a highly significant period that produced some extremely talented and influential designers, such as Saul Bass.

This period was an age of rapid development for many aspects of everyday society, including the type in the film industry.

As society was accelerating, technologies kept advancing, and type continued to evolve.

The contemporary film industry encountered a machine that would revolutionise the world of type, the computer. This introduction increased the potential for both graphics and typography to work together to create visually appealing and engaging content. The intergration of these technologies with contemporary society also led to a mass expansion of available type to designers to this very date.

As society has progressed, type has worked alongside designers and the film industry in order to convey visually, whether that be on letter cards or in a dynamic title sequence.

- Ferguson Stewart

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The Attack of It’s everywhere.

In 1989, Carol Twombly created the digitalised typface from Roman Emperor Trajan’s column, making its first appearance in Adobe Photoshop being included as a default typeface. First appearing in 1992 on the film poster for ‘At Play in the Fields of the Lord’, Trajan kept making its way into film posters following ‘The Bodyguard’ and ‘Scent of a Woman’.

Not too long after, Trajan was everywhere and became the standard for film poster logos across genres such as comedy, romance, horror, thriller, fantasy... you get the idea.

Trajan is still being used prominantly within film posters to this day. The phonemenon that is Trajan is one that graphic designers and typographers are still baffled by. How can one typeface suit every single genre of film?

Many would argue this trend of typography is innovative while others will claim it is just pure laziness. This is all quite subjective but what we do know is that Trajan isn’t going anywhere soon.

The question still remains, why this typeface is so widely used among film posters?

One might arugue it bears a strong similarity to Times New Roman, which in nearly all cases is also applicable to many designs due to its timeless serif typeface, hence its default inclusion on all publishing programs. This graphic/typographic trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down and movie goers are starting to notice how truly versatile Trajan is not only in film posters, but book covers and video game covers.

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rajan

Graphic Designer, Yves Peters argues the reason Trajan has been the forefront of film posters is due to the digital age. The simple task of being able to simply click buttons to change typefaces only helped encourage the use of Trajan throughout film poster production.

As many designers no longer hand draw/ paint film logos and titles, Trajan served as a convinent ‘one size fits all’ typeface for the digital era of film poster making.

- Patrick Zamuco

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“They were on two

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Serif vs Sans-serif

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It is interesting to see that Titanic’s posters used two different typefaces for their titles. The one in Trajan has been used more widely and there is also another version of the poster in Compacta. As mentioned by Patrick, Trajan is the most popular typeface in film poster design. It has been widely used for movies, regardless of genres, since the past century. Trajan is classic and serious. Being used in Titanic’s poster, it offers an opportunity for the audience to imagine the tragic story in the late 20s. In contrast, Compacta is a sans-serif typeface, designed by Ferg Lambert in 1963. It looks modern and its letters are tall and thin.

The designer of the second version poster created new effects on the word ’Titanic’ by adding circle pattern to replicate the texture and pattern of the metal Titanic ship. The style of it recalls the fancy product from the machine age. Compared to Trajan, Compacta with extra visual effects has less attention to the story but celebrates the ship itself.

The designer introduced both serif and sans-serif typefaces, so can the title ‘Titanic’ be any typeface?

The reference for using Compacta on the poster might be the menu on the ship in 1927 (Messynessy 2016). From the historical image (on the left), we can tell that White Star Line (the owner of Titanic) used both serif and sans-serif typefaces on the page: a typeface which is similar to Trajan for ‘RMS Titanic’, and another sans-serif typeface for the other writing. The poster designer embedded typefaces in the design to enrich the design dimension and layers of the poster and created a stronger relationship with ’Titanic’.

- Priscilla Lin

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The Sci-Fi Typeface What makes a sci-fi typeface?

Throughout the history of Sci-Fi films, the genre has become now known to be associated with certain styles of typefaces. From sleek sharp cornered characters, this futuristic and modern style of typography has evolved into its own genre.

One of the most well-known sci-fi typefaces made its debut in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Futura, designed by Paul Renner, this typeface is classified as a Sans-Serif typeface. Futura closely follows geometrical lines and shapes which are inspired by the Bauhaus movement. The modernist aesthetic to this typeface evoked a futuristic and minimalistic tone whenever used for films. This was one of Stanley’s favourite for that reason.

Throughout sci-fi films, many fictional worlds integrate technology advanced ahead of our present time. Within navigation systems and Interfaces on screens within these films, certain typefaces are also used to communicate a sense of modernism and futurism. You wouldn’t see Times New Roman as the main typeface used within the Millennium falcon, now would you?

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Terminals emphasise square shape

Bowls follow a square shape.

bank gothic

Ascenders kept strictly vercial

Bank Gothic is a prime example of how modernist aspects are reflected through a typeface that is easily recognised among the sci-fi genre. Following its linear form, Bank Gothic is comprised of a structure based off square structures and shapes. This approach results in a more clean, even sterile emotion that is evoked by simply changing terminals, ascenders and bowls.

- Patrick Zamuco

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Jessica Hische

Creator of the typeface used in 2012 film, Moonrise Kingdom.

Wes Anderson’s attention to detail throughout his film ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ (2012), from every planned camera shot right down to the typography designed by Jessica Hische. This refined and graceful style features graceful curves and swashes that ultimately became a large influence on the film’s distinct identity.

Jessica Hische’s typeface, Tilda, consistent resolved lettering system is shown throughout the film in credits and the title sequence, shown in a warm yellow.

In the development of this typeface, Hische was inspired multiple different typefaces, including Edwardian Script, basing her initial sketches off this typeface. After experimenting with different weight, thick and thin, she managed to develop a more personal style. She strayed from the overly formal appearance of Edwardian Script, to create a friendly and intriguing text that could be engaged with by the audience.

In creating Tilda, Hische delved into the design process and created hundreds of iterations, with certain letters being more difficult than others to perfect. Overall, her research was incorporated into her typeface designs and has been developed into an amazing typeface, with exaggerated serifs, and elegant, exquisite forms.

- Ferguson Stewart

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Moonri Kingdo 15

Ingredients Opening credits for production team and cast: Only list the most important members at this point and save the rest to the ending credits (still appreciating everyone’s great work!)

Brief introduction to the film: Sometimes in audio but there is a traditional way to have concise intro with a title card or a scene.

A bite of film visual style: This is about introducing film’s colours, texture, graphic elements, or characters’ characteritics or features.

A taste of film mood: It starts to bring in characters and story, always coming in with the background music.

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In order to set up a frame for the movie: raising the audience’s curiosity and starting to lead their emotion, there are always two ways of doing that.

Methods 01 Firstly, when the motion visual is communicating the key mood and the text is simply introducing the production team and the cast. In this case, typography works as a secondary element. For example, in Titanic’s opening (1997), the credits are presented with a short extract from the Titanic documentary. The text on the screen is white in Trajan to match its style to Titanic’s poster and also minimise its visual effects on the screen. We can tell that its position on the screen is not considered as the priority and has been generated around the images on the screen. The short documentary video takes the responsibility to lead the audience to the tragic story of Titanic and the credits are not actually contributing to the opening as the key elements but an additional message for the audience.

02 Besides that, another good way to design title sequence for the movie is to let the text generate the pictures on the screen. In this case, the credits are building the frame for the graphics of each still and leading the story of the opening. There is an amazing example of this: Catch me if you can (2002) by Kuntzel + Deygas, who was inspired by Saul Bass’s design. In this movie’s opening, each frame of it is formed by the text - the names of the production team and the cast. The designers extracted and extended the vertical elements of letters, and used them as the basic linework to shape the graphics and storyline for the opening. The credits become the key narrative in the title sequences and communicating the emotions and messages to the audience.

Beyond that, the designers introduced more illustrations to the screen around those existing graphic elements for each still and enriched the visual style of the opening.

- Priscilla Lin

Recipe

for title sequence typography design

Title sequence: the appetiser before the 2-hour main dish. It includes the text of the opening credits and cast members in the most time.

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Typography of Stranger Things

Origins of the classics

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Creator of the series, the Duffer Brothers mentioned their title font as being a “super important” aspect of their show in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter. They wanted to recreate the strong atmosphere, primarily inspired by the fonts and designs from the book covers of Stephen King novels. In collaboration with the design company Imaginary Forces, the result was completely reflected the feeling of being “in middle school or high school reading those paperbacks.”

ITC Benguiat, the chosen font for Stranger Things, was designed by Ed Benguiat, who was recognised as one of the type industry’s greats. Since his birth in 1927, he created over 600 fonts which include many that are still commonly used.

Alongside the use of ITC Benguiat for the title, another renown type, Avant Garde, is used for any credit texts that appear in the title sequence. The sequence of the credits involve the text to dive in and out of a much larger scale of glowing red letters from the title in ITC Benguiat.

The pairing of the decorative serif Benguiat and geometric sans-serif Avant Garde creates a well contrasting tone that builds an effective typographic palette perfectly suited for the show. The contrast between the san-serif and serif help in enhancing the beauty of the other, without presenting too strong of a presence against it. This is particularly demonstrated through the cropped view of the large scale title font being used as a background image for the credits, as it would have otherwise been too overpowering against he geometric text.

- Christie Kwon

STRANGER THINGS

STRANGER THINGS

A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES

A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES

ITC Benguiat title with Avant Garde credits (Original Title Design)

ITC Benguiat title with ITC Benguiat credits (Comparison against original title)

STRANGER THINGS

STRANGER THINGS

A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES

A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES

Avant Garde title with ITC Benguiat credits (Comparison against original title)

Avant Garde title with Avant Garde credits (Comparison against original title)

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Subtitles & Subtitles are most often an afterthought, added with the intention of e video reaching a diverse and multilingual audience.

Unfortunately, traditional subtitles and closed captions dont allow for much freedom in the way they are designed, as there are limits to the placement, colour, typeface and font that can be used. The characteristics that can be manipulated to allow for various subtitle and caption designs are as follows:

Font Colour

Background A block of colour (usually black) in the size of the subtitle and caption can be used as a background for the text to avoid legibility issues which cannot be avoided when using just coloured text.

Stroke Strokes are applied as an outline around text to allow legibility against the contantly changing background of the video while not being as disruptive as the block backgrounds behind the text. When applied, strokes can either be alligned to the outer, centre or inner edge of the text, in which the outer allignment serves best in terms of legibility. The most common stroke colour is usually a heavy contrast of black

The background of a video is constantly changing and therefore the colours that were most commonly used for subtitles and captions were narrowed down to the two colours white and yellow, as they were less commonly used in backgrounds.

against white or yellow fill.

Stroke Stroke Stroke

Colour Colour Colour white colour text against video background yellow colour text against video background black colour text against video background

I am your father

Why so serious?

THIS IS SPARTA! 20

text with no stroke (top) text with stroke alligned to centre of text outline (middle) text with stroke alligned to indide of text outline (bottom)

Life is like a box of chocolates

You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.

I’ll be back

To infinity and beyond

& Captions in Film One of the challenges in translation through subtitles and captioning is to convey the nuanced meaning of certain words, phrases and colloquialisms. A generic subtitle using a monotype font does nothing to help onfront this challenge, but through the reative manipulation of typography, subtitles can be used to express meaning.

The 2014 Keanu Reeves film, “John Wick,” uses typography design to place meaning and emphasis on certain words. It was crafted through the change in typeface and the emphasis of specific words through a change in colour. The results demonstrated unconventional subtitle design, which was much more representative of graphic design on posters and magazine covers.

- Christie Kwon

The 2014 film “John Wick” uses unconventional subtitle designs in terms of placement, colour, capitalisation and italicisation.

YOU SHALL NOT PASS Ohana means family. Family means Hakuna Matata no one gets left behind or forgotten.

The name’s Bond, James Bond. There’s no place like home Yesterday is history. tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.

Let it go

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opcorn magazine is a pubication specifically interested in typography within the film industry. This publication is made for people who interested in more than the spectacular graphics scattered throughout film, and those people who are interested in the details.

Throughout this magazine we have explored the depth of how powerful typography is in entertainment, focussing in on a large spectrum of platforms that use typography to enhance the experience for their audience.

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We wanted to thankyou for joining us on this journey and stay tuned for the next edition!

- Ferguson Stewart

Patrick Zamuco

Contributors

Editor + Cover Page Designer

Priscilla Lin Style Guide Manger + Advert Creator

Christie Kwon Proof Reader + Contents Page Designer

Ferg Stewart Image Director + Editorial Designer

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