Film credit sequence, still 1
The project You've Got Mail is a movie title sequence for the classic romantic-comedy movie featuring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks as the main characters. This illustration project consists of a sequence of 15 illustrations that would be played before the movie starts. I chose to depict two crucial scenes of the movie and their transition, going from Meg Ryan sending a message to Tom Hanks receiving it and sending one back.
Film credit sequence, still 5
Brief
For this illustration class project, we were instructed to digitally design a series of 15 stills that would constitute a sequence of titles for a movie of our choice. I chose one of my all time favorites, You've Got Mail.
Creative Process
Background
Romantic comedies are my comfort movie genre, and the nineties decade is my favorite regarding music, colors, and overall style. I chose to illustrate this movie in a slightly more modern and simplified way, while keeping some elements of nineties design.
Film credit sequence, still 12
Film credit sequence, still 2
Design Thinking
The background is a muted shade of dark brown to create contrast between the planes and bring focus to the names while keeping "white" space. The simple capitalized sans-serif typeface reflects the style of the movie's era. The muted colors reflect the decade's clothing style and color palette, while the added grain is a characteristic of "retro" times.
Challenges
The main challenge I encountered at the time was the unfamiliarity of Adobe Illustrator which made my design process rather slow in contrast to other students and to the general pace of the class. However, my interest in the movie and in the project itself brought me motivation and resilience.
Film credit sequence, still 7
Final Outcome
Favorite Details
A unique element in this project is the illustration style, which consists in a generalization of some areas of color, depicting the characters as almost pixelated, and achieving detail without overpowering the illustration sequence. Another interesting detail is the fact that the 15 stills are extracted from 3 detailed illustrations.
You've Got Mail film credit sequence, stills 1 to 15
Lessons Learned
This project taught me that sometimes it’s better to work smarter, not harder. At the time, I wasn’t very experienced with Adobe Illustrator, so designing anything digitally took a long time. To make the process more efficient, I created a few detailed scenes and zoomed in on different parts to generate various movie title stills, along with the typography. This approach also helped mimic the movement often seen between opening credit scenes.
Future Paths
“You've Got Mail” was the first project that sparked my interest in developing my illustration skills. It was also the first piece to show early signs of my emerging art style, particularly through the use of warm, muted hues. If I were to continue working on this project, I would explore animating it and bringing the illustrations to life through a 30-second to 1-minute film credit sequence.