Creating Professional Titles for Film and Video
Written by Justin Tomchuk
So, you're an independent filmmaker editing your video and you're at the stage where you need to create titles. For the most part, you know what you’re doing technically but in terms of design you’re looking for some simple guides and tips. This tutorial will cover all aspects of creating basic titles from a design point of view, so your titles look professional. Included will be things to avoid, and things to do when creating title sequences.
Before I start, for those who are not aware of TV safe zones, pixel aspect ratios and display resolutions should take a quick look at the following articles from Wikipedia.
TV Safe Zones
Pixel Aspect Ratios
Display Resolutions
Keep it Simple
It's important to remember that the video you're creating should be powerful enough to support itself. You do not want to create title sequences which will compete with the video. That said, you also want your titles to have some sort of creative aspect to them. The goal is to create titles that work well with the video, not something that looks out of place but blends in with your video's overall style and subject matter.
Be Concise
It's okay to use a few different fonts, colours and sizes, just don't use too many! Try to think "Is this needed?" when adding more then one font or colour. If you want to have a visual distinction between titles and names, then it's fine. Just don't add extra things unless they enhance the message you're trying to get across.
It's also important to be consistent. If you choose a particular font, size and colour be sure to use them for all of your titles to keep consistency.
Things to Avoid
Avoid distinct text styles such as bevel, emboss, outer glow and heavy use of drop shadow. Nothing screams amateur like big gooey type with lots of unnecessary baggage attached.
That said, don't be afraid to stylize the text in some way to match the subject matter of your video. A little bit of thought in colour and composition can go a long way into making your type pleasing to look at.
Use Spacing
If you look closely at the image above, you'll notice that there is some seperation between characters on the lower example. Fonts aren't perfect, and sometimes their default seperation values do not look good. In the example with spacing, certain characters are more spaced out, and the second line is raised up a bit to make the composition more balanced.
Look at the word 'Title' in the example without spacing. The I, T and L are too close to one another. To fix this, open the character window in Illustrator or Photoshop.
From this window you can seperate specific characters so that their placement is more balanced. Click between the characters that need to be seperated and change the seperation values in the 'Character' window.
Break it Up
In this case, a single line of text does not fit well with the composition of the image. It looks like the type has been tacked on and potentially damages the power of the image behind it.
The text has been broken up so it sits on two lines, the top font is serif and italized. The bottom font is sans-serif. Generally, you don't want to mix serif and sans-serif fonts in a composition unless they work well with one another. You have to use your judegment to determine if it works or not, in this case I think they look ok.
Avoid Cliché Fonts
There are certain fonts that are way overused and way too recognizable these days. The ones I have chosen are Papyrus, Crackes and Comic Sans. Use your judgement on what you think works best and try to avoid using a font that has been reused over and over again in videos of similar themes.
In Closing
You want titles that will work for your video without competing with the video itself. Often times, simpler is better. Just a little bit of thought into creating titles will make your videos more professional. That's all I have to say, if you have anything to add or comments please contact me. Thanks for reading!