The Art Of Film Title Design Throughout Cinema History

These are five points within the article that I found interesting.


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"Film titles can be great fun. In them we see the bond between the art of film making and graphic design — and perhaps visual culture as a whole. They have always served a greater purpose than themselves: to move the overarching story forward."


This point explains exactly what a title sequence is, it expresses how important they are to the film itself. As it is the first thing you see it allows the audience to make their own interpretation of what the film is about by maybe giving hints on the genre, setting and some characters. I think that title sequences have a big role to keep the audience interested in this film and has to make a good first impression. This allows the title sequence designer to come up with fun and imaginative ideas.


"Words and lettering played an enormous role in films of the silent era"

Main title from D.W. Griffith’s “Intolerance” (1916) which is considered by many to be the greatest film of the silent era. (Above)


This point defines how important text is in a title sequence and not just for silent films. Has there was no sound in these films then the film relied on the text to get the message of the film across. This is still relevant to films in this day.


"life for the titling crew at Disney was strained by the weight of its foreign-language versions and that film exports rarely encouraged innovation in titling."

First Mickey Mouse cartoon 1929 (Above)


I find this point very interesting as I did not realise how restricted titling crew are just due to the language barriers. It also shows that even though at the beginning; of a now world wide cartoon that they only had so much they could do with titling.


"It could be argued that typography lost importance in this era of title design. The imagery behind the credits received a lot more attention."


I choose this point as I believe it is true. Although text is very important when a title sequence has a lot going on and you have to pay attention, then the audience does not notice the typography any more and is watching the background.


"Whatever function they perform, titles remain an essential part of film."


I feel that this statement is very true. The title sequence starts the film and allows the audience to have an insight on what type of film it is going to be. Without a title sequence the audience wouldn't know who was in the film, who directed it and it would just go straight into the film with out the audience knowing what they are letting them selves in for.