In this blog it contains our typeface development for both the title of the movie opening and the credits that will be added in the scene. This typeface development was made by Cassie with the help of Kimora, Eileen and Tisha with their opinions and making decision.
A typeface is the design of letters, numbers, and symbols that create a specific visual style for text. It helps shape the way words look, making them feel formal, casual, modern, or even eerie. For our project, choosing the right typeface is important because it helps set the tone of the story. By carefully selecting a typeface, we can make sure our project matches the emotions we want to create. But first, we must know what our title is before we can create the typeface.
Picking the right title for our project wasn’t easy. We wanted something that matched the story and stuck in people’s minds. After a lot of thinking, we narrowed it down to four choices:
- Missed Call
- Text Me When You Get Home
- Invite Only
- Afterparty
Each one had a good reason to be picked. Text Me When You Get Home felt familiar, something people actually say. Invite Only made the story feel exclusive and secret. Afterparty hinted at something happening after an event, maybe something unexpected or dark.
But in the end, Missed Call was what we went with. The title is simple but powerful. In our story, that one missed call is the turning point. In our story, a mother calls her kidnapped daughter, but the daughter doesn’t answer. That missed call is more than just a phone notification, but rather a symbol that shows the loss of communication. It creates suspense and makes people wonder: How will the mother contact her daughter again?
Our group members decided this title by holding a poll in our group chat, where we discussed each title and came to the final conclusion of Missed Call.
- Distorted or Glitched – Text looks glitchy or broken, which can make the audience feel like something is wrong or out of place. It also implies corrupted signals or lost communication.
- Sharp and Jagged Edges – Suggests violence and creates a sense of unease. This has a horror-like texture and messy look that suggests something dangerous is happening, and adds mystery.
- Bold, Heavy Lettering – The thick and strong letters make the title stand out and feel intense. This makes the title more impactful when shown, and adds a sense of tension, grabbing attention right away.
- Minimalist, Sans-serif Fonts – Creates a sleek and clinical aesthetic, often used in psychological thrillers.
- Handwritten or Scratchy Styles – Feels unsettling and personal, like something written in fear, or written by a criminal. Usually used in horror-thrillers.
- Red Accents or Fading Effects – Implies blood, danger, or an ominous presence.
My two favorite fonts are the glitched font and bold heavy lettering.
I also thought about what names and credits to include. The text needs to be clear but still match the thriller style. It’s important that the audience can read the names of the people involved in the film while still feeling the suspense and mystery.
Here are the fonts we’ve considered:
And since we plan to show the title in a dark background, I made this:
After careful consideration and group polls, we narrowed it down to the 2nd and 8th font, which falls under the glitched text and bold heavy lettering fonts.
This font has a glitch effect, which gives it a digital feel and shows that something is interfering. This might work well for our thriller as we do have a technology aspect in our opening (the missed call) which may be a recurring theme/symbol in the rest of the movie.
Usually a distorted and glitchy text connotes a distortion of the truth, loss of control or communication, or something being “hacked” or manipulated. While our thriller doesn’t fit two themes, it fits the “loss of control or communication” connotation well as it ties with our kidnapping scene which shows that the mother cannot contact her daughter. This font may imply that the rest of our movie is her mom trying to find and contact her daughter, rather than her daughter escaping her kidnapper.
However, personally I think our movie lacks more technological elements to use this font. While the font itself is great, it looks more “sci-fi” in my opinion rather than thriller.
This font is bold, with a subtle texture of “duct tape” almost. This makes the danger feel more direct and terrifying. The duct tape texture alludes to the fact that duct tape is a common tool for tying victims up, which could be the daughter in the thriller, even if duct tape wasn’t explicitly shown. The edges are also not clean and sharp, having some jagged edges, though not obvious. This suggests that some violence is involved, or that something happened that caused damage. This suits our thriller as our protagonist was kidnapped, and pulled away with force while she's unconscious just before we plan to show the title.
This font suggests a more physical thriller movie, perhaps implying that the rest of our film is about the daughter facing and escaping her kidnapping, rather than the mom trying to find her. This type of font works well with thrillers with dark secrets and mysteries, and the main mystery that arises in our opening is: why did they kidnap her? What's the motive? how will the mother find her or how will she escape?
However, I’ve found one problem with this font. With a white background and black test, the duct tape effect seems clear and cool, however we plan to show the title when the screen is black, meaning the text must be white.
As you can see, the duct tape effect is not as obvious here, however I think the texture still adds some mystery to our title, and adds a special touch. Without the texture, I think the font would be too generic. So for me, it’s not a huge deal.
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Finally, we decided to use this second font with the bold lettering because it aligns more with our film.
I (Cassie) experimented with the font, size, color and texture. I noticed that most thriller films used red accents or entirely red typefaces, So I tried it out for our title.
While the red implies violence/blood and connotes danger, the combination of black and red makes this look like a horror film rather than a thriller. Using a darker red suits our opening more, as dark red connotes rage or wrath, while a brighter red could represent love. However, the dark red text is hard to read against the black background.
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If we kept it white like this, we fear it would be too generic and bland. Plus, it does not really have a lot of meaning relating to our film opening.
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Adding red accents in the textured areas made our title look “bloody”, which fits well with our kidnapping theme in the movie opening. This also may be a hermeneutic code: How is blood involved in the next scenes? Did the kidnapper hurt the protagonist? Additionally, the texture on every letter looks repetitive, as we have double letters with identical textures next to each other.
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If we add the texture on only a few letters and spread it out, it looks less busy and more cohesive. However, this brings focus to the letters with the texture. In this title, the letters M, S, C and L have no significance.
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Here, the letters I, D, A and L are highlighted. When rearranged, this spells out “DIAL” as in dialling a number, which is related to the title itself. It also shows its significance in the story. The texture is also spread out between letters, making the typeface
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This is similar to the previous one, however, the letters I, E, D are highlighted instead. When rearranged, this spells out “DIE”, which gives this title a spooky double meaning or perhaps foreshadowing, meaning it isn’t supposed to be deciphered at first glance. However, there's an imbalance as the left side of the design is busier than the right.
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For our final choice, we held a poll in our group chat for the last 3 options. Finally, we decided on this one.
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But wait! The title isn’t the only thing we need to make for our typeface. The credits also matter. We’re going to include the actual name of our actors in the credits, such as: Cassandra D Merkus, Kimora C Hartawan, Eileen Milano, Charlyn K Wijaya and Tara C Hartana.
In thriller films, even the credits help build tension. The fonts used can make the audience feel uneasy, excited, or curious. So, I watched the opening credits for a few thriller films and noticed a pattern.
Here, I looked at movies like Get Out, The Silence of The Lambs, and Zodiac. They all had very simple fonts which showed it was cold, serious and mysterious. So, I picked similar fonts and put them all together again to compare.
After another poll, we narrowed it down to the first and the last one.
This font has a rough and vintage feel, often associated with mystery, secrecy, and unease. It is similar with typewritten text from old documents, crime reports or classified files, making it a great choice for thriller films, especially ones involving investigations or detective work. This means this might work well with our thriller as our protagonist gets kidnapped, making her a victim of a terrible crime.
This font is clean and neutral, often linked to technology as it looks typed out. Its simplicity gives off a calculated vibe, which could work well for a thriller with a "mastermind". Since it feels controlled, it can be unsettling. It also looks like a text message, which could show the mothers efforts at contacting her daughter.
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In the end, we decided to go for the 1st font, as the typewriter gives off a mysterious feel and the rough edges suggest something bad is happening, making the audience curious.
Colour wise, we are going to keep it simple by keeping the text white to draw focus to the getting ready scene as it builds the protagonists character, rather than to the actual text.
And with that, we are done with the typeface development :)
Self Reflection: This typeface development was really a huge struggle and take a lot of time. But this was a fun activity as we were all working together. Finding the perfect font was difficult as there were many changes when Cassie find many different type of fonts, this creates a more difficult decision making in order to pick out the font. There were many trial and errors which I had to change in the editing process when Cassie founds a new font to try out. But overall this was really helpful to create and emphasize the feeling we were trying to do for the movie.