Wow.
The Movie Titles Stills Collection.
What a treasure trove this is for those who love:
• movies
• design
• typography
• and (to a lesser extent) illustration.
Designer Christian Annyas has assembled a collection of still images of movie titles, from the 1920’s to the present. Though far from complete (how could it be?), the collection is extensive and growing.
The movies are arranged by decades, and within that, by year. Note that the first set of decade links is page top, above the main heading, and the second below; there are separate links for sub-collections of film noir, westerns, and recent updates.
It’s also easy to miss the fact that within a given decade, the listings are usually divided into two pages, for the first and second half of the decade, and the only links for navigating between those is at the bottom of the pages.
These are long (long) scrolling pages full of images. Let them load and keep scrolling down.
Many, though not all, are linked to pages with larger images, and in some cases additional stills of ending titles. Most have Amazon links to purchase the films.
I love the way titles for the first color films start to appear in the 1930’s, and color and black and white films are interspersed into the 1950’s.
The quality of the titles takes a distinct hit in the second half of the 20th century (with a low point, like movies themselves, in the 1970’s). In fact many of the titles from the 1970’s to the present look like tossed off afterthoughts, in sharp contrast to the highly valued and marvelously designed titles of the first half of the century.
Time Sink Warning.
[Via Francis Vallejo]
