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Christian Annyas

Westerns at The Movie Title Stills Collection

Any fan of lettering will enjoy The Movie Title Stills Collection, curated by designer Christian Annyas. Specifically relevant to the focus of wood type though is the page there featuring title screens from Western films.

The relationship between wood type styles and the modern interpretation of the “Wild West” is an interesting one, deserving of more elaboration than I’ll provide now. Suffice to say that the connection has provided a reliable device for designers attempting to evoke that particular chapter of North American history.

To be accurate, many of the examples from The Movie Title Stills Collection were hand-painted, but even among those it’s easy to see the influences of wood type with the use of styles like tuscanlatin, various slab serifs, etc, with allusions to typographic devices like catchwords, streamers, and generally intense letter decoration.

Winchester '73 title screen

Fort Apache title screen

Dodge City title screen

Cat Ballou title screen

3:10 To Yuma title screen

Man Who Shot Liberty Valance title screen

3:10 To Yuma end screen

See more examples at The Movie Title Stills Collection.

©2010