A movie intro, also familiarly referred as title sequence or opening sequence is a way for a film production to present their title, key production, and cast members. This approach is then adopted by TV shows and much later by music videos.
For an average of less than 2 minutes long, movie intros are an important factor in setting up audiences’ expectations and making a lasting impression. Together with music accompaniment and animation effects, the movie font works together to set the stage, a first glance of the whole motion picture.
If the makers want it, the title sequence can become a short movie on its own. Pitching the font against a dark, animated background, or incorporating B-rolls while the texts make their appearance is also a common practice.
Over the decades of movie history, there have been sort of established styles for each film genre. It is totally okay to follow this long-running trend. Why? Well, because the formula does work.
Now with references ready on your screen, your job is to find and choose a fitting font to execute the task.
Choose fonts that express the theme of your movie, but try to be classy about it.
Typography is not just a manner of information spreading; it’s a way to make readers or viewers want to read your message because it is laid-out in a visually attractive way. There’s always a scope, theme, or purpose for it.
It’s a sure-fire way to tell the audience that they’re about to watch a high-energy action movie, a heart-wrenching love story, a side-splitting comedy, an encounter with extraterrestrial beings, or a months-long journey inside a fantasy world.
Another top-priority necessity, your text should not be challenging to read. Some decorative fonts can make titles look great, but titles are mostly short words. Lengthier words may need to be adjusted to other typefaces.
Unless you’re going to make text transformations from ‘cryptic’ to normal text, don’t give your moviegoers a “homework” by giving distractions in the watching experience.
Movie production and movie marketing usually have shared assets like fonts and color palettes. These assets are used among movie intro, posters, social media templates, even merchandise for blockbusters and others who hit commercial success.
To achieve font cohesion across your project, you can try to use fonts from the same family. Play around with the different weights offered. Font weights, if you don’t know it, are usually divided into light, regular, bold, extrabold, etc. This keeps everything blending naturally without visual clashing.
If you wish to use several fonts instead of just a variety of font weights, make sure they complement one another.
So you have decided to pair fonts. Even though there’s not a lot of typographic hierarchy to be considered in movie intros, doing a check and recheck is still beneficial. Arrange your font pairings to see which would better suit titles and which would better suit names. You want the combination to complement each other.
This is probably needed more by short movie makers. You can control the speed at which your audience is reading through choosing font, namely through font width.
Condensed typefaces have the effect of being quick and emphasizing. And expanded typefaces can slow down reading speed, even in single word texts. Unique, adjustable typefaces can allow you to make expanding/condensing animation as you see fit.
If you don’t want to utilize condensed or extended typefaces, you can use regular fonts and alter how your text looks through tracking or kerning customization.
In the preliminary stages of your work, ask for feedback from other people. If you’re in a production team, take inputs not only within your team or your boss. Take an outsider’s opinion as well.
If you’re an independent movie maker, show your movie intro prototype to family members, friends, or community you’re involved with.
After all the steps above are fulfilled, lack of preparation for font license can hinder your movie. Pay attention to free fonts tagged with this sentence: “Free for Personal Use”. Quite obviously worded, your creation could not be published for commercial publication if you use those.
So, instead, find fonts with legal license which purpose is. They usually go under “Broadcast License” or other similar wording.
If you are venturing out to marketing, though, of course a different type of license needs to be fulfilled. Read each licensing thoroughly to avoid misinformation.
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Now let’s take a look at one movie poster example we made here.
The font that is chosen here is “Deadtoast”. It’s a serif font with a decorative stroke in the middle resembling a horizontal bar. It was created with thriller/horror movies and Halloween season in mind, but it can also be used for themes of the Wild West or other periods, namely the 1800s or early 1900s era.
It’s suitable to be paired with less overpowering slab serifs.
So, that’s a wrap on “7 Important Things in Choosing Font for a Movie Intro”. I didn’t dive too deep into it, but I’m sure the key points above should help you in determining which font(s) to choose for your movie.
Our fonts are very versatile and can be utilized as product branding too. Give my other posts a read!
You can browse more of our font products through Drizy Studio Font page. Or get updates and occasional promotions through our Instagram page. You can check out some fonts we provide for free on our Highlights. Here’s a peek of our feed below.
