Art of the Title

Last updated
Art of the Title
Art of the Title logo.png
Type of site
Motion design publication
Available in English
OwnerArt of the Title, LLC
Created byIan Albinson, Alex Ulloa
EditorsLola Landekic, Will Perkins
URL artofthetitle.com
Launched2007
Current statusInactive

Art of the Title (AOTT) is an online publication dedicated to title sequence design, spanning the film, television, conference, and video game industries. The publication is both an educational and historical resource and a contemporary publication, focusing on the creative process behind the design of title sequences. It combines interviews with filmmakers and directors, designers, and craftspeople with in-depth analyses and behind-the-scenes materials.

Contents

Overview

Art of the Title is the leading online resource of title design, with hundreds of title sequences available to view. The site features title design from countries around the world and aims to "honor the creators and innovators who contribute to the field, discussing and displaying their work with a desire to explicate, facilitate, and instigate." [1] The Independent has said that Art of the Title may well be the "best place to visit in search of more of these neglected wonders of film art." [2] Film Comment called the site "a praiseworthy and priceless compendium" in 2011, and said, "Art of the Title's greatest achievement has been to single out and champion the journeymen designers who painstakingly sculpt opening ephemera." [3]

Art of the Title staff have been invited to speak at industry conferences and festivals such as SXSW, AIGA, PromaxBDA, MODE Summit, Gamercamp, [4] TIFF Next Wave, Nordic Media Festival, [5] and TCM Classic Film Festival. [6] They have also done several talks in partnership with the Toronto International Film Festival's Reel Comfort series.

History

Art of the Title was founded by motion designer Ian Albinson and launched in 2007 as a blog intending to highlight the design of title sequences.

In 2008, Alexander Ulloa joined the site as Head Writer. In 2011, the site expanded with the addition of writers and editors Lola Landekic and Will Perkins in the roles of Managing Editor and Senior Editor, respectively.

In 2011, the Art of the Title team curated the title design section of the Graphic Design — Now in Production exhibition, co-organized by the Walker Art Center and the Smithsonian Institution's Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum. [7] The exhibition ran from October 22, 2011 – January 22, 2012 at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, and then was taken on a tour including stints in New York, Los Angeles, Grand Rapids, Houston, Winston-Salem, and Providence. A comprehensive, illustrated catalogue produced by the Walker Art Center and featuring an 18-page section on title design curated and written by Art of the Title accompanies the exhibition.

In 2012, the site launched a redesign developed in partnership with New Zealand-based studio CactusLab. [8] The redesign adopted a responsive structure, allowing the site to "seamlessly adapt from desktop to mobile" and to provide "better cross-referencing of data alongside new bio pages for title designers and studios." [9]

In 2013, the site went down temporarily when its Iron Man 3 article was linked from Robert Downey Jr.'s Facebook page. [10]

In April 2015, the site announced an exclusive look at the James Bond Spectre title sequence, which turned out to be a rickroll. Readers' reactions ran the gamut from outrage to kudos. [11]

In June 2017, site editors Lola Landekic and Will Perkins hosted a screening and discussion of films by designers and filmmakers Saul Bass and Elaine Bass at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, DC. [12]

In November 2018, Art of the Title was the first publication to confirm news of title designer Pablo Ferro's death. [13] Editor-in-Chief Lola Landekic [14] contributed to Ferro's obituary in The Washington Post. [15]

SXSW Title Design Awards

From 2010-2014, Art of the Title facilitated and participated in the jury of the SXSW Excellence in Title Design Awards, part of the SXSW Film Festival.

In 2013, Ian Albinson hosted a discussion at the title screening event, and then announced the winners at the Film Awards. [16]

In 2014, Lola Landekic and Will Perkins gave a talk ahead of the Title Design Awards and hosted a discussion with filmmaker and designer Henry Hobson. [17]

Related Research Articles

<i>Dr. Strangelove</i> 1964 film directed by Stanley Kubrick

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is a 1964 political satire black comedy film co-written, produced, and directed by Stanley Kubrick and starring Peter Sellers in three roles, including the title character. The film, financed and released by Columbia Pictures, was a co-production between the United States and the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Walker Art Center</span> Gallery in Minneapolis, opened 1927

The Walker Art Center is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center in the Lowry Hill neighborhood of Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States. The Walker is one of the most-visited modern and contemporary art museums in the U.S.: together with the adjacent Minneapolis Sculpture Garden and Cowles Conservatory, it has an annual attendance of around 700,000 visitors. The museum's permanent collection includes over 13,000 modern and contemporary art pieces, including books, costumes, drawings, media works, paintings, photography, prints, and sculpture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saul Bass</span> American graphic designer

Saul Bass was an American graphic designer and Oscar-winning filmmaker, best known for his design of motion-picture title sequences, film posters, and corporate logos.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Trailer (promotion)</span> Short video advertising a creative work

A trailer is a commercial advertisement, originally for a feature film that is going to be exhibited in the future at a movie theater or cinema. It is a product of creative and technical work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pablo Ferro</span> Cuban-American graphic designer and film titles designer

Pablo Ferro was a Cuban-American graphic designer, film titles designer, and founder of Pablo Ferro Films.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Motion graphic design</span> Subset of graphic design

Motion graphic design, also known as motion design, is a subset of graphic design which combines design with animation and/or filmmaking, video production, and filmic techniques. Examples include kinetic typography and graphics used in film and television opening sequences, and station identification logos of some television channels.

South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has continued growing in both scope and size every year. In 2017, the conference lasted for 10 days with the interactive track lasting for five days, music for seven days, and film for nine days. There was no in-person event in 2020 and 2021 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in Austin; in both years there was a smaller online event instead.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sid Sutton</span> British graphic designer (1939–2023)

Sidney Malcolm Sutton was a British graphic designer most famous for designing the Doctor Who title sequences from 1980 until 1986. He joined the BBC in 1961, as assistant to Tom Taylor. In 1968 he was appointed Senior Designer for Presentation Graphics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Central Station Design</span>

Central Station Design is a Mancunian design company founded by Pat Carroll, Karen Jackson, and Matt Carroll. It is usually associated with Factory Records and the Madchester scene of the early 1990s. The company created album cover artwork and posters for Factory artists including The Happy Mondays, Black Grape, and James. Their design for the Happy Mondays' Madchester Rave On E.P. in late 1989 became the iconic logo for the movement. Their work came to represent the movement so clearly that Factory Records owner and radio presenter Tony Wilson said, "The second half of the Factory story is best summed up by the painterly eccentricity of Central Station." Speaking about Manchester in the 1980s and 1990s, Karen Jackson said, "At some point you need an incubator and a home for all this energy, which for us became Factory Records, Dry Bar and The Haçienda. Tony Wilson articulated the value of this energy, people like Kevin Cummins photographed and documented it, the bands soundtracked it, and we tried to paint it."

Lewis Sayre Schwartz was an American comic book artist, advertising creator and filmmaker, credited as a ghost artist for Bob Kane on DC Comics Batman from 1946-47 through 1953, and with writer David Vern Reed, as co-creator of the villain Deadshot. Alongside Pablo Ferro and Fred Mogubgub, he was cofounder of Ferro, Mogubgub and Schwartz in 1961, a film company whose work includes the credits to Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove. Schwartz was a teacher at the School of Visual Arts during the early 1960s. He produced a film about Milton Caniff in 1981.

<i>Game of Thrones</i> title sequence

The title sequence of the HBO fantasy television series Game of Thrones that introduces every episode serves as a guide to the physical landscape of the world of the series. It changes depending on the locations visited in the particular episode it introduces. The title sequence was created by Elastic for HBO, and is accompanied by a theme composed by Ramin Djawadi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian</span> London-based designer, artist and filmmaker of Armenian and Algerian descent (born 1985)

Nelly Ben Hayoun-Stépanian is a London-based designer, artist and filmmaker of Armenian and Algerian descent. She serves on the Advisory Council of METI and is the designer of experiences at the SETI Institute. She is also an exhibitor and keynote speaker who has worked with museums and design centres across the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nordic Media Days</span>

The Nordic Media Festival is the largest media conference in the Nordic region.

Elaine Bass is an American title designer and filmmaker.

<i>Angry Indian Goddesses</i> 2015 Indian Hindi-language drama film

Angry Indian Goddesses is a 2015 Indian Hindi-language drama film directed by Pan Nalin and produced by Gaurav Dhingra and Pan Nalin under the banner of Jungle Book Entertainment. It stars Sandhya Mridul, Tannishtha Chatterjee, Sarah-Jane Dias, Anushka Manchanda, Amrit Maghera, Rajshri Deshpande, and Pavleen Gujral with Adil Hussain. It was screened in the Special Presentations section of the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival, where it finished second for the People's Choice Award.

Michael Harold Riley is an American motion graphics designer, art director and the founder of design company Shine. Has directed the television title sequence for Turn: Washington's Spies, the film title sequence for Kung Fu Panda, film sequences for How To Train Your Dragon, and worked on the redesign of the animated MGM theatrical logo. He has been nominated for an Emmy Award six times including for the main title design on Temple Grandin.

Daniel Richard Perri is an American film and television title sequence designer. He has worked in film title design since the 1970s, and has been responsible for the main titles of a number of notable films including The Exorcist (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), Star Wars (1977), Raging Bull (1980), Airplane! (1980), and Suspiria (2018).

<i>Pablo</i> (film) 2012 American film

Pablo is a 2012 American documentary film about Cuban-American graphic designer Pablo Ferro. It was directed by Richard Goldgewicht and narrated by Jeff Bridges.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saskia Marka</span> German film title and graphic designer

Saskia Marka is a German film title designer, known for her work on the TV series Babylon Berlin, The Queen's Gambit, Deutschland 83, Deutschland 86 and Deutschland 89.

Nina Saxon is an American graphic designer, film titles designer, and founder of Nina Saxon Film Design.

References

  1. "About the site". Art of the Title. 2012. Retrieved May 11, 2014.
  2. "Time to give a little credit to the credits". The Independent. February 25, 2011. Retrieved May 11, 2014.
  3. Finnegan, Jesse P. (2011). "Site Specifics: ArtoftheTitle.com". Film Comment. Retrieved May 11, 2014.
  4. "A Brief History of Video Game Title Design". Art of the Title. November 5, 2013. Retrieved May 16, 2014.
  5. "THE TITLE SEQUENCE THAT SOLD THE SHOW". Nordic Media Festival. Archived from the original on 13 May 2018. Retrieved 12 May 2018.
  6. "Talks & Events — Art of the Title". Art of the Title. Retrieved 13 June 2015.
  7. "Graphic Design: Now In Production". Walker Art Center. 2011. Retrieved May 11, 2014.
  8. "2012: The Year in Review". Art of the Title. December 31, 2011. Retrieved May 11, 2014.
  9. "Art of the Title • Web Projects • Work • CactusLab". CactusLab. 2012. Retrieved May 11, 2014.
  10. "2013: The Year in Review". Art of the Title. December 31, 2013. Retrieved May 11, 2014.
  11. "Art of the Title – NEW: An exclusive look..." Twitter. Retrieved 25 August 2015.
  12. Linthicum, Ryan. "Movies at SAAM: Summer 2017". Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved 12 May 2018.
  13. Nyren, Erin. "Pablo Ferro, Legendary Title Designer for 'Dr. Strangelove,' Dies at 83". Variety. Retrieved 19 December 2018.
  14. "Lola Landekic on Art of the Title". Art of the Title. Retrieved 19 December 2018.
  15. Smith, Harrison. "Pablo Ferro, evocative title designer of 'Dr. Strangelove' and 'Bullitt,' dies at 83". The Washington Post. Retrieved 19 December 2018.
  16. "2013: The Year in Review". Art of the Title. December 31, 2013. Retrieved May 11, 2014.
  17. Kolmar, Jim (February 20, 2014). "Title Design Awards and Art of the Title Discussion Announced". SXSW. Retrieved May 11, 2014.

Further reading