Consider yourself warned if we overly navigate paths at a dinner party— it doesn’t take much to get me talking well-nigh my love of title sequences. I will unsure berate you with my worship of the form, pulling up the Panchinko opening titles on my phone, or insisting that the Mad Men intro started a movement. I’m fortunate that my work here at PRINT allows me to nourish my love of this art form outside of dinner parties, as I’ve previously had the privilege of interviewing the legendary title designer Dan Perri, assembled end-of-year round-ups of the year’s weightier title sequences, and recently covered the striking opening credits for the series City on Fire. And anyone who’s explored the world of title sequences to the lengths that I have has surely come wideness the invaluable website and resource Art of the Title.
Art of the Title is an online publication defended to triumphal and unpacking all manner of title sequence design. It’s the weightier sort of rabbit slum to fall into, providing a curated hodgepodge of credit reels, title designers, and informative wares well-nigh the medium for all to enjoy. As an voracious explorer of Art of the Title myself, I felt compelled to speak to the site’s sole operator and curator, the sunny Lola Landekic. Below, Landekic reflects on running Art of the Title for the last 12 years, her transferral to highlighting women title designers, and why the hell she loves title diamond so damn much.
(This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.)
When and how did you first fall in love with title sequences and their design?
It was a slow process for me. I grew up as a sponge for media as a child, and I’m an immigrant to Canada, so I spent a lot of time watching television and watching movies— which is one of the ways that I learned English. It’s how I learned increasingly well-nigh North American society when I was very little, so I had that mindset of actively watching. It was so variegated and wayfarer to me from where I had been, and that made me a lot increasingly enlightened of what I was seeing, and made me swizzle things in a variegated way.
I got really interested in graphic diamond as a teenager and had the privilege of stuff wonted into sort of a specialized upper school program for kids that were interested in art and design. I was exposed to a lot of diamond and art history at an older age than some kids might be, so in my teen years, I looked up to people like Milton Glaser as if they were waddle stars. To me, that was the coolest thing you could be: the person who ripened iconic images.
What I really worshiped well-nigh Milton Glaser was that he had the sufficiency of translating his skills into lots of variegated media. He was an illustrator and a designer, so he wasn’t boxed in; that was unchangingly very fascinating and interesting considering I have a similar sensibility. And title diamond is this perfect tie-up of so many variegated art forms; stuff a fan of title diamond doesn’t midpoint just one thing. It ways an appreciation for many variegated art forms, and a title sequence is a waterworks that can encompass so many of those variegated forms.
Is there a particular title sequence or title designer who initially pulled you into this art form?
I’ve worked on Art of the Title now for 12 years, so I’ve talked to hundreds of people well-nigh their favorite title sequences and what woke them up to the art form. And often it’s not just that the title sequence itself is an interesting work of moving image— it’s moreover that the mucosa ways something to them, or the larger project ways something to them. The weightier title sequences are inseparable from the larger work considering their purpose is designed to serve that larger work. So in that sense, one of my personal favorites is from the late ’50s mucosa Auntie Mame.
Gems are stuff moved in stop motion, and there’s this kaleidoscope effect, colors moving— it’s just stunning. And the typography is both worked out of these sequins, and then moreover hand painted on glass. It’s an incredible fabrication of glut and ideas of beauty, and it completely reflects the inside weft of Mame in the story who’s this beautiful, exuberant character. It moreover highlights the craft that goes into the art form— the various ways that you can tideway it from the live-action prune at the beginning, to the stop motion, to the kaleidoscope effect, to the hand painting.
The designer of that sequence, Wayne Fitzgerald, had a 50-year career; he designed over 200 title sequences, and this is one of his older works when he was at Pacific Title, a title studio. Later in his life, in the ’90s, he created a title sequence for Total Recall, which is basically the well-constructed opposite of the Auntie Mame sequence. To me, the comparison of these two sequences— both created by the same designer, but encompassing such variegated tones, such variegated media— is the nonpareil of what I love well-nigh the art form. One person can encompass such extremes, can yacky such variegated viewpoints and tones. That was a big risorgimento to me.
What’s the backstory of Art of the Title? How did the site come about?
Art of the Title began as a small Blogspot blog in 2007 by Ian Albertson, who is a designer in Bristol, Vermont. Then in virtually 2010 or so, Ian reached out to a couple of his online acquaintances at the time— I was one— and he was like, I’m thinking of making this a little bit worthier and I’d love to have some help. Is anyone interested in writing well-nigh title sequences with me? And I was like, I am!
At that point, I’d been working as a graphic designer for a while already, and I will unchangingly love graphic design, but it’s not the only interest that I have. I’ve moreover unchangingly loved writing, so it seemed like the easy way to combine these interests, and to indulge myself to explore and stretch in a variegated way than I had been at the time.
For a while it was three of us: myself, writer Will Perkins, and Ian. In 2012, we redesigned the website, and that’s when it really took off. In fact, it still looks the same as it did in 2012, which I think is a testament to how well we set it up at the time. For the last five years or so, it’s been a one-person project. One of the things that confuses a lot of people, plane longtime fans, is that the website looks so polished that everyone assumes there’s a large team overdue it. That’s really not the case— it’s just me.
This year, I’ve been hiring illustrators though, considering I started a new series for the site tabbed “Top Five.” In the realm of titles, the most fun you can have is just talking well-nigh titles. Whenever someone finds out that I make this website, they want to talk well-nigh their favorites, and it’s so fun, with everyone coming at it from a variegated angle. So I’ve been talking to people well-nigh their favorites for this series, and it’s been so lovely. So for each article, I rent an illustrator to create a portrait of the subject. Every once in a while, I rent a writer, or someone pitches me a unconfined piece well-nigh a title sequence, and I legation them to write that article. So there’s a number of contributing writers on the website— I can’t write everything.
As a veritable title diamond scholar, how have you seen title sequences transpiration over time, expressly in the digital age?
Over the ‘90s, everything shifted and became a lot increasingly digitized. I often think of the 2000s era as the democratization of title design, where the tools became so wieldy to such a large variety of people to create things in a much increasingly efficient way. Which meant that title diamond emerged from where it had previously lived within larger studios and made it so that smaller teams like duos or people just working on their own could enter the field. So that’s a trappy part of technology changing.
I’ve been studying this art form for so long now, and like any art form, there are waves and renaissances and trends. Right now, there feels like there’s been an explosion in the art form, where it’s wilt so popular, and one of the reasons for that is considering there’s such a market saturation, considering of the streaming services. All of these streaming services are competing for viewers, and one of the most important parts of that process is establishing a foothold in the memory of your audience, and the title sequence is such a vital part of that connection process. There’s such a plethora of trappy title sequences now, but I think that’s just a symptom of the market and how urgently everything needs to be marketed.
I know you’ve started working in the title diamond space yourself. What has that wits been like so far?
I’ve unchangingly loved working with typography and lettering, so this is a perfect waterworks for that work. I’ve moreover had the privilege and the pleasure of working primarily with sexuality directors and sexuality creators. It’s such a joy to help hoist sexuality filmmakers considering they just don’t get as many chances and as much support as other people in the industry. So it’s been such a joy to contribute to these projects.
Speaking of your transferral to uplifting women in the industry, can you talk well-nigh your ongoing “10 Women of Title Design” series on Art of the Title?
As consumers of culture, if we’re sensitive, we often have moments of awakening. For me, virtually 2014-2015, I had this realization— which I’m sure seems very obvious— that everything I was consuming was created by men. I started to think well-nigh plane the diamond that I had been taught and the mucosa history I had been taught. I asked myself, Is there such a thing as a women’s title diamond history? It was a very difficult question considering I didn’t know of any.
I’m sure most people who have any interest in title diamond are enlightened of Saul Bass. But very few people, plane people who love title design, know well-nigh Elaine Bass, who was Saul Bass’s close collaborator for 40 years until his death in 1996. So whence in 1960, with her work on the title sequence for Spartacus, she unsalaried to scrutinizingly every title sequence that Saul Bass made, but people still constantly refer to him as this lone genius. I think that’s very detrimental, not just to history, but to the ways that we indulge ourselves to wits the world and the art in it. Learning increasingly well-nigh Elaine’s contributions, getting to speak to their daughter, Jennifer, and reading the monograph well-nigh Saul Bass’s work— which extensively talks well-nigh Elaine— really lit a fire under me to the point where I wrote the Wikipedia vendible for Elaine.
She was part of the first “10 Women of Title Design” vendible I wrote, and at the time, I thought I’d do it once. Maybe I could do it twice. But simultaneously, I made a conscious point to watch films directed by women and— surprise, surprise— sexuality filmmakers tend to work with increasingly sexuality craftspeople overall. It seemed like every second or third mucosa I watched that was directed by a woman had a sexuality title designer, which to me was astounding; I was discovering so many more! Once I started digging, they were everywhere, but nobody knew well-nigh them. It inspired me to alimony going, and now I’ve washed-up seven of them; that ways 70 women. 70 women that have unsalaried to this art form in one way or flipside over the years, or are currently working.
For many of them who are currently working, this has led to them getting speaking engagements, new retrospectives of their work, new printing well-nigh their work, increasingly respect in their current studios. Many of them have made the leap to creative director, I think as a result of increased printing and coverage. So it’s been extremely satisfying.
Not just for the women, but all the designers that I highlight, I often hear that the coverage that I do on the website has, for example, made it possible for them to wield for visas considering a publication has recognized their work as worthy of mention. It has unliable them to wield for work in new ways. It has opened new audiences to them. Let’s say, previously, they were only worldly-wise to get work in Europe, and now they can get work for American studios and American productions. That’s incredible, and one of the reasons I alimony making this website. Any time I finger overwhelmed, I try to remind myself of that. I moreover remind myself that those are just the ones that I’ve heard of. I’m trying to unceasingly remind myself that good intentions and good work have far increasingly reach than we know about.
What’s your favorite part of curating Art of the Title?
When someone shows me something I’ve never seen before. Luckily, that happens all the time, considering mucosa is this bottomless, trappy well. When someone shows something that is just so fascinating, or something that I watch and I think, Okay, how did they do that? There’s this mythological intro for The Science of Sleep, the Michel Gondry film, where it’s this spinning paint effect. I remember watching that and thinking, How did they shoot that without getting paint all over the camera? Once I looked into it, I learned there’s literally a whole mechanism that they had to develop in order to shoot it. It’s fascinating.
Many title sequences full-length these complicated Rube-Goldberg machines. My favorite most recent example is for Bad Sisters. It used this ramified machine of all these various parts, and they had to physically build that in a room for the title sequence, which is unchangingly such a trappy thing to me. Or claymation, which I never see anymore, but if I see a claymation title sequence, I just waif sufferer considering I’m so happy well-nigh it. Things like that are just so delightful to me that it spurs me on and makes me alimony going and digging and finding new treasures.
