Graphics Reference
In-Depth Information
The history of type in motion is most commonly linked to film
title sequences. In silent films, intertitles were used to cue audiences
to plot points (Fig.
9-4
), and for many years simple title cards marked
the start and end of a film (Fig.
9-5
). Beginning in the late 1950s,
designers were commissioned to introduce the themes and story lines
of the films in more complex and communicative title sequences.
Designers like Saul Bass and Maurice Binder shaped new ways in
which typography might introduce setting and character in a film (Fig.
1-156). In Binder's work for the film
Charade
, a thriller starring Audrey
Hepburn and Cary Grant from 1963, the type and credits merge with
colors, arrows, maze shapes, and patterns, giving the viewer a hint of
the twisting plot, fashionable Paris setting, and action (Fig.
9-6
).
Today, kinetic typography is featured not just in film and
television titles but in a wide range of digital media. Type in motion
has the ability to draw in viewers and keep their attention with a
cinematic, narrative presentation of a message. Designers use moving
type in many projects, including websites, film titles, book and game
trailers, data visualizations, and mobile apps.
9-4
An intertitle card
from the silent film
The
Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
,
1920, uses expressive
typography in keeping
with the horror film's
stylized sets.
9-5
Title card used in
the trailer for the film
Citizen Kane
, 1941.
9-3
“Il Pleut” (It's raining), by the poet Guillaume
Apollinaire, 1918, is a “calligram” that composes
words as raining letters.
