Shadowy villains, tough detectives, mysterious women—this is
the stuff of film noir, the movie genre that serves as inspiration for this
tutorial. Film noir, most associated with mystery and crime dramas produced in
the 1940s, usually features high-contrast, black-and-white, dramatically
shadowed cinematography.
A distinct style of typography also came out of this genre, visible on the title cards, or the frames that display the film’s title at the beginning of a movie. These titles were
hand-painted, often in a three-dimensional style, and crafted in such a way
that they often reflected the style of lighting and shadow used in the movie itself. You
can see some examples in the Film Noir category of the Movie Title Stills Collection.
As Jonathan Howells at Graphic Definer explains:
“The largely uncredited studio staff artists who created
these typographic compositions were true graphic design renaissance men, who
not only painted the scenic backgrounds [and] created portraits of the stars,
but in their own anonymous way, gave birth to a new, pictoral typography style
forever associated with noir.”
For this tutorial, we’ll be creating our own film
noir–inspired title card in Photoshop and Illustrator, combining authentic vintage photography, textures, and digital fonts to replicate the shadowy, grainy look of
typography from the classic noir era.
I’ll be creating a card for an actual film, And Then There Were None (1945), based
on the Agatha Christie mystery novel of the same name. Feel free to follow
along, create typography for your favorite classic (or modern) film, or make
up a title of your own.
Before we get started, make sure to check out the selection
of retro
fonts and texture packs on GraphicRiver for your
own vintage-style projects.
What You’ll Need
You’ll want to download and/or save these resources before
getting started so you can work through the tutorial steps more easily:
- Photo 1
| via Vintage Stock Photos - Photo 2
| via New Old Stock - Photo 3 | via Flickr, Royal Australian Historical Society
- Texture | via
Pixabay - Film grain texture | via Pexels
- Font: Mr Dafoe | via Google Fonts
- Font: Yellowstone
| via Dribbble, Jakub Foglar - Font: Poller One | via Google Fonts
1. How to Set Up Your Document in Photoshop
Open a new document and set the dimensions to 1000 px by 750
px.
2. How to Combine Photos Into a Single Scene
A dark, ominous atmosphere is key to the film noir look, so
it helps to choose photos that will help you achieve that mood. In And Then There Were None,
the action takes place on an isolated island estate where eight people (none
of whom know each other) are invited by a rich acquaintance to spend the
weekend. When they arrive, not only is their host missing, but other mysterious
events start happening. So we’ll be working with photos that set a stormy island scene.
Step 1
Go to File > Place
and locate photo 1.
Drag the corner handles of the photo to make its width the same width as your
canvas (making sure to hold down Shift as
you do so to maintain the dimensions of the photo).
Step 2
First we need to convert this photo from color to black & white. Choose Adjustments from your
panels or go to Window > Adjustments
to pull it up. Select Black & White (make
sure the Tint checkbox at the top is not checked) and adjust the color sliders to your liking.
Step 3
Place photo 2 and align it to the cliffs in the first photo. We’ll be removing the sky
and the water in this image next.
With photo 2 still selected, go to Layer > Rasterize > Smart Object to make it fully editable.
Step 4
Zoom in to 100% to better see your work, then choose the Quick Selection Tool (accessed with a
click-hold on the Magic Wand Tool).
In the toolbar that appears at the top of the screen, make sure Sample All Layers is not checked.
Then, with a fairly small brush size (mine is set at 8), click and drag the
tool along the house and cliffs until just that area is surrounded by a
flashing dashed line.
Go to Select >
Inverse (which will select everything outside that outlined area) and hit Delete—you should be left with only the
house and cliffs. Deselect everything by hitting Control/Command-D.
Step 5
Select the Eraser
Tool; we’ll use this to soften and blend the edges of the second photo.
Choose one of Photoshop’s default Soft
Mechanical brushes (I’m using the 45 pixel size) and change the Opacity to 50%. Drag the brush along the bottom and sides of the cropped photo
to make it look like part of the first background image. You should end up
with something like this:
Step 6
Our last few steps for combining photos are to add some
dramatic clouds to the scene. For that, place photo 3 and enlarge it so the borders are no longer visible on your canvas. Use
the Rectangular Marquee Tool to
select the top portion of the photo, down to the horizon line, and delete the
rest (Select > Inverse > Delete).
Step 7
Hit Control/Command-D
to deselect everything. Now that you can see a portion of the underlying
photos, use that as a reference to adjust the tone of the third image. Repeat
the process of Step 2 to adjust the color.
Step 8
Right-click the layer name in the Layers panel and select Rasterize Layer, and then use the Eraser Tool again to blend and soften the bottom edge of the cloud photo. Start by
completely erasing any cliffs left in the photo (with your brush at 100%
opacity), and then switch over to 50% opacity to soften the edges.
For further blending and
a darker, more ominous look, finish it off by going to Layer > Layer Style > Blending Options and selecting Multiply from the Blend Mode drop-down menu.
Your finished photo collage should
resemble this one:
3. How to Add Texture to Your Background Image
Now that we’ve compiled a background image to set the scene
for our typography, we’re going to add some texture and shadowing so the type
will stand out even more.
Step 1
Hit Command-Option-Shift-E
on a Mac or Control-Alt-Shift-E on
a PC to merge all your existing layers into one new layer. This preserves all
your layered work so you can go back and change it if you want, but also merges
all our photos into one so we can work on it as a single image.
Now, with that
new layer selected, go to Filter >
Texture > Grain and select Vertical
from the Grain Type drop-down
menu. Set the Intensity to 3 and the Contrast to 5, or
experiment and adjust to your liking.
Step 2
Place the texture image and
drag the top and bottom handles so it fills the whole canvas; it will cover up
the background photo for now.
Use the Blur
Tool at a large size, around 300 px
with a Strength of 50%, to smooth out and de-emphasize the
middle, lighter portion of the texture image.
Then switch to the Burn Tool, with a brush size of
about 150, setting the Range to Midtones and the Exposure
to 40% (Protect Tones should be
selected). Brush around the edges of the image toward the center to extend the
vignetting (or the shadowed, darker areas around the edges) in a little
further. You should end up with something like this:
Step 3
The purpose of this texture is to darken up the whole
photograph a bit and add a more shadowed look. This will help our white
typography stand out more. So as a final touch, we’re going to reduce the
brightness and contrast before we overlay it on our photo with blending
options.
Go to the Adjustment panel
and select Brightness/Contrast. Reduce
the Brightness to about -60 and the Contrast to about -50. As you can see, this evens out and darkens the whole texture,
which is just what we want.
Step 4
Finally, go to Layer > Layer Style > Blending
Options. Select Hard Light as
the Blend Mode.
And there you have it: a dark and mysterious backdrop for
your film noir title card. Now, on to the typography!
4. How to Create Vintage-Style Typography
When designing to reference a particular era, one of the best
ways to visually establish a time period is through your typeface
choices. The ones I’ve chosen for this tutorial are all based on or copied from
styles used in the early- to mid-1900s.
Some good places to look for free retro or vintage fonts are
Font Squirrel’s Retro
and Historical
categories (free for any use), 1001 Fonts’
Decade and Yesteryear categories (free for either personal or commercial use), and
Lost Type Co-Op (free/pay-what-you-want
for personal use).
Step 1
First, we need to place our text before applying a 3D effect.
There are two ways you can approach this part:
- If you’re using Photoshop CS6
or CC, you can place your text straight in Photoshop and use the 3D Extrusion
functionality. - If you’re using an earlier version of Photoshop or just
prefer to work with type in Illustrator as I do, Illustrator has its own set
of easy-to-use 3D tools.
I’ll be demonstrating the Illustrator method so anyone can
follow along. To start, open a new document in Illustrator the same size as
your Photoshop document (1000 x 750 px). Take a screenshot of your background
in Photoshop or save it as a file and place it in your Illustrator
document—this will just be for reference in placing the typography.
Step 2
In Illustrator, lock the layer your background image is in
and create a new layer. In the new layer, type out your movie title in the
blank space where the sky is. If you’re following along with this design:
- “And then” is set in Mr Dafoe at 80 pt
- “THERE WERE” is set in Yellowstone
at 80 pt - “NONE” is set in Poller One at 120 pt
Each portion of text is staggered across the page to better fill up
the length of the artboard.
Step 3
If you like, add a few finishing touches, like quotation
marks around the title. You can find a font that comes with chunky marks (I
used Anchor Jack) or draw
your own with the Pen Tool.
You can
also add some text at the bottom to balance out the composition. Some common
features for title cards were an author name if the film was based on a book or
short story, the name of the movie studio or producer (e.g. A Paramount
Pictures Production), or a copyright statement.
5. How to Add a 3D Effect to Your Text in Illustrator
Step 1
Select all the parts of your title, including quotation marks if you have them. Ignore any secondary text for now. Go to Effects > 3D
> Extrude & Bevel. In the window that pops up, select the Preview checkbox on the right. By clicking
and dragging the cube in the middle of the window, you can manipulate the tilt
and rotation of your title. You can see the settings I ended up with below:
You can also experiment with the Extrude Depth, which has the biggest effect on how 3D your letters
look: the bigger the number, the farther your letters will stretch back into
space. I settled on a depth of 38.
Step 2
For even more control over the appearance
of your title, click the More Options button
on the right. There, you’ll find options for adjusting the lighting on your 3D
objects, which will help them look more dramatic and realistic.
You can add
more light sources by clicking the New
Light button (the middle option beneath the sphere) and change their
locations by dragging around the white dots on the sphere, which represent the
light sources. As long as Preview is
selected, you’ll be able to observe the effects of these settings on your work.
Have fun experimenting until you get a result
you like. You can always just close out of the window and start over if things get out of hand.
Step 3
Use the same Extrude & Bevel options to give any secondary text a subtler 3D effect, more like a shadow than full-on 3D.
Before leaving Illustrator, copy
all your text by dragging your cursor to surround the artboard and hitting Command/Control-C.
6. How to Texturize Your Typography in Photoshop
Step 1
Switch over to your existing
Photoshop document. Hit Command/Control-V
to paste your typography, and in the Paste
As window that pops up, select Smart
Object and hit OK. Resize and
reposition if needed.
Step 2
First we want to soften the
typography a bit, making it a little less sharp-edged and digital-looking. With
your new Vector Smart Object layer that has your text in it selected, hit Command/Control-J to make a copy of it.
Click over to that copied layer and drag it below your original text layer.
Go to Filter
> Blur > Radial Blur and set the Amount
to 30 and the Blur Method to Zoom; hit OK.
Step 3
Go back to the Layers panel and reduce the Opacity of the blurred layer to 40%. This process adds a little blur
and an almost glowing effect, similar to the quality you see in old films.
Step 4
As a final touch, we’ll add some
texture to the typography. Place the film grain texture file and size it to fill your whole canvas. Now go to Layer > Create Clipping Mask. This
will clip the texture to the layer below it (our typography layer). It will
look a little funny until we apply blending options in the next step.
Step 5
Go to Layer > Layer Styles > Blending Options. Select Overlay as the Blend Mode and reduce the Opacity
to 45%. You’ll see the gray edges of
the letters now have a nice, grainy texture.
Step 6
With the film grain texture layer
still selected, go to Adjustments >
Brightness/Contrast and click the button at the bottom of the window that
looks like two overlapping circles. This will apply the adjustments to only
your selected layer rather than the whole document. Change the Brightness to -15 and the Contrast to 35 to give the texture more contrast.
Good work! Here’s our finished title card:
And an up-close view of the typography:
.png)
And That’s a Wrap
I hope you’ve had fun exploring the
classic typographic style of film noir—and have picked up some good techniques
for doing some basic photo manipulation, texturing, and 3D typography. As
always, feel free to share how your project turned out or ask questions in the
comments section. Happy designing!
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