Movie Titling

On the heels of our movie poster post, it's only fitting that we highlight the other place where a film's graphic identity comes from: the titling. A great archive of title stills can be found at The Movie Still Collection, a compendium of hundreds of movie screen shots from 1920s-present.

Flipping through the site, one can tease out the many trends in film typography, from the classic (above) to the recent (below). Perhaps the most artful, typography-wise, belong to the Westerns genre. Oh, to have wood type cut in the form of some of those titles.


Also included on the site are the end titles for many of the films. Though largely absent from modern films, they provide a fitting (and typographically appropriate) conclusion not just to the films, but to this post.