Typography research

Our project is of the horror/thriller genre but to be more specific; virus/infection movie. We have found in our research that the conventions in typography in horror movies has changed quite drastically through the decades, so here are a few examples:

Dawn of the Dead (1978)
The colour co-insides with the word 'Dawn' as it represents the colour of the sky at dawn, (The sun rises up at dawn and the zombies rise up from the ground). The font is fairly simplistic and conventional - its big and bold - but a closer look shows that it has minor scratches on the letters, informing the audience that something (zombies) has tampered with it. The title is spread on the negative space which makes it look - to the audience's eye - that it is laying on the ground, thus forwarding the assumption that zombies have roamed and tampered with it. The title draws that audience's eyes to the ground - the ground is an important aspect of the film as that is where the zombies come from.

28 Days Later (2002)
This is a modern example of the same genre, with noticeably different typography but however with similar intentions. This example displays further tampering with the letters to a greater extent than Dawn of the Dead, perhaps showing a greater attention to detail in more contemporary productions. This technique is developed by placing the letters at slightly different heights to which implies the situation isn't running smoothly.

Carriers (2009)
The title is very stark; Red on white, space between letters, deformation of certain letters and an Ariel font.
Blood is obviously one of the main components to the title, it informs the audience what to expect from the film. Blood is hardly presented in a subtle manner; rather than blood drops there is blood splatters - this, again, teases the audience about what type of film it is - It adds a menacing tone to the title.
The word 'carriers' -in this context- means the infected. The spaces between each letter connotes the separation of the 'carriers' and the normal people escaping from them and killing them (blood splatter).
The distinction between the normal people and the carriers is also implicitly shown by the change of style within the title. The first half looks fairly conventional - pure red Ariel font - (representing the normal people), whereas the second half looks gruesome bloody (representing the carriers or infected.

- Ben and Stephen -