Typefaces have different emotional qualities, depending on their form. Let’s start by defining some of the common type styles:
• Serif. These generally include a little stroke at the edges of each letter. In The Origin of the Serif: Brush Writing and Roman Letters (Saint Ambrose University Catich Gallery, 1991), Edward Catich demonstrates how utilizing a brush gave birth to the serif. Even though their origin is still discussed today, the truth is that serifs facilitate the letters’ alignment perception, and with it, the type’s readability. Classic serifs include Times New Roman, Garamond, and Baskerville. Serifs can also be thin and straight (like Bodoni), or thicker, also called slab serif (Rockwell, Clarendon).
• Sans serif. These are typefaces without serifs, and the stroke weight is generally uniform. Typical sans-serif typefaces include Futura, Helvetica, and Gill Sans.
• Script. These typefaces resemble calligraphy made with a brush or quill. Their stroke weight varies from thin to thick.
• Display. These are typefaces that, for best appearance and readability, are better displayed at a larger point size. Nowadays display is used as a synonym for decorative or articulated fonts that are appropriate for a header or title.
• Bitmap. These are screen fonts; therefore they are at 72 dpi resolution and are designed to be used at a particular font size. Zooming in on or scaling up these fonts reveals that they are composed of pixels. These fonts are displayed correctly when used on Web sites or screen-based interface designs, but they are not appropriate for printing or motion-based work that requires a resolution output higher than 72 dpi (such as titles to be printed on film) unless you want their pixilation to be a conscious stylistic choice.
• Monospaced or fixed-width. These fonts are designed similarly to the way a typewriter works; each letter occupies the same exact amount of space, regardless of the adjacent letter.
A typeface could articulate itself in a variety of weights. When that happens, it is referred to as a font family. A font family can include some or all the following individual fonts, which range in weight from lighter to heavier:
• Ultra light
• Light
• Roman
• Italic
• Semi-bold
• Bold
• Extra bold
• Black
• Small caps
Each of these font weights might have additional variations: condensed, compressed, or wide.
The following terminology will help you obtain a better understanding of typeface properties so that you can better articulate your title sequence type:
• X-height. The height of the body of a lowercase letter such as x or a. Different typefaces are designed with different x-heights, depending on their use (newspaper fonts, for example, are designed with a taller x-height to make them easier to read). Keep in mind that different fonts displayed at the same size might actually look smaller or bigger, depending on their x-height.
Font Styles
Figure 3.1 Font Weights
Figure 3.2 Font weights examples.
Figure 3.3 X-Height example. Notice the different x-height of these three fonts displayed at the same font size.
Understanding this small detail could help you argue with your client for the use of a particular font. Let’s say that when working on your end titles, you have a problem with screen space, like the credit roles or names are longer than usual. In this situation you might opt for a font that has a taller x-height so that you can reduce the font size and still maintain legibility.
• Stroke weight. The variance between the thin and thick strokes of a font.
• Type size. The size of a font is measured in points, depending on their output and destination. A general rule of thumb in designing titles is to start at 24 points.
• Uppercase. Capital letters, also called majuscules.
• Lowercase. Smaller letters, also called minuscule.
• Mixed case. Words or sentences that alternate upper and lower case.
• Small caps. Smaller capital letters, generally designed to be as high as the x-height.
• Ligatures. Special characters that are combined to create a single glyph—the most common ligature being f+i or f+l.
• Do’s and don’ts. If there is one set of rules you should follow from this very moment, it is the following:
• Smart quotes. If you want to avoid being bashed by the design community, when you use quotation marks do not use the straight ones (also called the prime symbol) but instead use the smart (or curly) quotes that have been designed as part of the font you are using. A typical use of primes is in indicating values of length or time; for example, if you typed 5’10", it could mean 5 feet 10 inches or 5 minutes and 10 seconds. Smart quotation marks generally are either open or closed and should be used at the opening and closing of the quotation, respectively; they are often curled toward the center of the quote. They can be single or double. Apostrophes fall into the category of smart quotes; when you’re using apostrophes in your title cards, make sure that they display correctly, as though they were a single closed smart quote.
• Faux italic or bold. Some software programs allow the user to create a faux (or fake) bold or italic. For example, if you select your text and activate the faux bold option, your text instantly looks fat, but unhappy; the software created a Frankenstein’s monster version of what your font should have looked like if you had actually used the correctly designed bold variant of your font. Sometimes the bold variant of a font doesn’t exist or you don’t have it available. In this case I’d simply recommend you either purchase that font weight or find another font to use.
• Handwritten fonts. Do not underestimate the character and uniqueness of handwritten fonts. Although hand-drawing each title card might seem like an enormous amount of work, the results can be spectacular. Take, for example, the titles created for Where the Wild Things Are or for Juno. What does this all mean? Well, now you have an arsenal of options. You should never leave these options to chance. Never design your title cards with the default font settings of your software. Always make a conscious decision about font usage.
To get started, ask yourself the following questions:
• Are my title cards going to be uppercase, lowercase, or mixed case?
• Does the typeface offer the option of using ligatures?
• Which font weight should I use, Roman or bold?
• How am I planning to display the difference between the talent’s names and their roles?
Every decision on how you shape and articulate your type on your title cards should be a conscious decision, motivated by the project, the audience, and your strategy.
