Blog Post 31 - What Makes A Font?

Since I need it to continue making my announcement, and it can also be used in all promotional work, let's research how to make an eye catching title graphic.

While I picked the name for my short film a while ago, specific title graphics are made with a unique font, color, and other artistic flourishes to make the very look of the letters personal to the media. This is often so much so that a great design should be so recognizable that regardless of the actual words, the audience should be able to tell what film its from. 

For example, the font for Disney itself seem relatively simple at first glance, but further analysis makes it clear why its so easy to recognize. First of all, it's stylized in mostly completely capital letters, making the “lowercase” only be smaller for some letters, such as A and N. Certain letters are also very eye-catching, such as the iconic Disney “D” with the extra swirl around the straight line, or the lowercase I and J’ with a looped dot. W also gets a pretty prominent loop. Even on some of the less stylized letters, loops are a common motif, such as on the F, T, and C.

Since I was researching the Moana 2 announcement, I thought it would be appropriate to check the Moana font as well. The Moana font is also stylized with capital letters, this time with no lowercase at all. All the letters have a more jagged look to them in order to fit with the island settings. One thing that some fonts used, and is present in the Moana one is having a letter or a few symbolize something else by stylizing it heavily. For example, by changing the typical circle/oval of an O into a heart. Moana’s font changes its O to a tight swirl pattern, which could both symbolize the waves of the sea, or the heart of Te Fiti that Moana is trying to return.

Taking these aspects into consideration, I can start thinking about how I can stylize Kylie-Cat’s title and font.