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Subject: Title screens and typographical trends

Written By: wixness on 11/16/20 at 1:36 pm

I've noticed that recently, especially after seeing videos by Seeker (some science channel on YouTube) and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War and perhaps a bunch of indie content here and there, 2010s title screens and typographical trends tend towards plain and sometimes expanded letters or condensed, the latter sometimes to evoke a retro feel. You may even notice this in the title screen for the Joker film.

I slightly like the minimalist typography that's taking place because it's a lot less elitist from a design point of view, but considering how I view the 2010s culturally and artistically, and how it sometimes seems to try and imitate design trends of decades before I even existed, it leaves me with mixed feelings. Consider too that the 2010s has had some of the world's most advanced media technologies in a long time yet prefers to go for a subdued look (similar to what typography was possible in older media if it wasn't hand-made).

In the 2000s (90s too but I can't really say for the 90s when I didn't exist for most of that decade and don't really wish to explore it), title screens used far more dynamic typography, even playing around with otherwise plain fonts and using a wide variety of colors. You can see this in Mean Girls, The L Word, Friends and Scrubs as examples. Plain white text in front of motion pictures or still images is more an exception than the rule with title screens and typography used in media in general throughout these decades I believe.
Title screens for movies in 2006:
https://www.filmsite.org/titles-2006.html
Title screens for movies in 1985:
https://www.filmsite.org/titles-1985.html
Title screens for movies in 2015:
https://www.filmsite.org/titles-2015.html
A video by Seeker on cholera, whose other videos also have similar typography:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hj95IZMlZWw
I don't get why Seeker insists on this retro style typography when their videos tend to detail current developments in science, especially with retro style graphics used in their video on the coronavirus:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nVV5fsZpahQ
Loading screens for the game Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym3xGI0nl9U
This is the one of the only times this typographical design makes sense because of the in-game setting. It gives a feel of limited technology, filmography before advanced computer generated graphics were available for cheap.

Have you noticed this? How do you feel about this? I could be wrong here too and want to hear what you all have to say.

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