Typography

Typography is the art of lettering based around the style, size and type being used. As a large amount of lettering is used in the credits of films, it is a significant area for us to investigate. The opening credits and the title board of a film give the audience an impression of the overall tone and genre of the film because of associations we have with certain styles of lettering. Writing is also sometimes used in film to display the place and time events are occurring. As typography establishes so much about the style of the film, I have looked at different uses of it in film.

Our aim is to create a film opening that comically combines the two contrasting genres of Westerns and horror. Both are very recognisable and stylised, meaning audiences will gather expectations for the film based on the association of the font used.

Westerns are one of the oldest film genres, as they were based on popular Western fiction in other media from the late 19^th century, the style of typography used in them has developed over time.

Posters such as these were used in the actually Old West and the typography used in them was developed into the lettering seen in Western films.

These are screenshots from Sergio Leone's 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly'. It is a Spaghetti Western, a more arty and stylised type of Western made by Italian American directors. The typography mimics the aforementioned posters typography, giving the film and impression of authenticity. The manner in which the lettering appears on the screen is reminiscent of a splatter of blood, emphasised by the sound of gunshots. The font is large and consistent in the centre of the screen, signifying strength and certainty of the characters and theme of the film.   

A similar technique of transition is used in this horror film, 'Dawn of the Dead'. The typography more realistically changes into blood and disperses than in the Western. This could be due to the darker tone of the horror genre and more graphic nature of the violence in this film. The colour also connotes aggression and blood, relating to the death caused by the zombies and the infection of the disease. The font used is also in the centre of the screen, signifying the strength and relentlessness of the threat in the film. It is also less decorative than the Western font, showing that the film is more serious.

This is from David Fincher's 'Se7en', a crime horror film about murders based around the seven deadly sins. The typography used here is small and off centre as the lettering flickers, signifying fear and the fragmented nature of the characters and tone of the film. The font is simple and childlike, contrasting with the image on screen in an unsettling manner. White is used for the letters to emphasise the darkness of the rest of the image, making the words seems very distinct.

The colouring here also contrasts with the background, emphasising the significance of the typography. The lettering is slightly more rough and and less formal, relating to the cartoonish drawings in the title sequence. The Walking Dead television show was based on a comic book, meaning that the visual style of typography relates to this.

From looking at this examples of typography, it's clear that relation of the lettering to the visuals is especially important, as well as the positioning of title and credits on the screen.

To find a suitable font for our film opening, I used the website http://www.dafont.com/ which provides free downloads of a range of fonts in different styles.

This is a fairly simple font used for every word that reflects Western style of typography. However, while it is more comical and informal than some fonts, I think that the combination of genres is not obvious enough and could be represented better through the use of contrasting styles.



I used contrasting fonts in this example. First I used the more horror associated style with the word 'zombie' and Western style for 'cowboys'. However, to make the combination of genres more clear, I swapped this around, using the red, violence associated font for 'cowboys' and Old West style for 'zombie'. The positioning of the typography is uneven, signifying the damaged and fragmented nature of the zombie attack.