nice/clean font for titles

budha said:

Hey guys,

When doing the white text with black background look in my videos, I am having a hard time finding a good font that looks good. Do you guys have any suggestions on which one to use?

I appreciate the help.

p.s. these are for say a documentary piece where it says, "The next day" or an interview like, "What is your Opinion on Grapes?" etc.

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What App are you using?

i enjoy century gothic.

budha said:

hah sorry I forgot...

Final Cut Studio 2

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Are you doing your titles in Final Cut or in Motion?

I'm guessing you're using Final Cut, as when I first saw Motion's title capabilities I almost fainted like a little girl in a teen idol's presence

Short answer: Use Motion

Stick to fonts that are medium thickness ( especially if you have a SD resolution project ) and don't make your font too small.

Impact, Hoefler (maybe) , Copperplate, Marker Felt, Rockwell, Futura, Casual, and even the old standby Helvetica should look fine.

Of course be sure to take your "white" down to broadcast safe, and even put a touch of grey ( or some other color ) unless you areally want the bold flat look.

I don't have Motion, I use LiveType, but I always put a very slow slightly noticeable motion texture on anything white. ( not sure what that's called in Motion ) I always want to put in the slightest hint that the title is not just a solid color.

My favorite font in the whole world is Bauhaus 93. That sums up awesomeness to me.

Of course, it's real world use is rather limited unless you're making a documentary on Roller Discos, or 80's video arcades.

are your sequence settings in FCP set to DV? DV is horrible for titles... get your edit done, then change the sequence to uncompressed (or DV50) and then do your titles.

If you're not using Motion, try the Boris Title 3D text generator that came bundled with FCP. It produces much cleaner text than FCP's built-in generators.

Another tip would be to make sure the text isn't pure white. Instead of using 255-255-255, use 220-220-220. It will still look white on TV, but won't jitter from the excessive contrast.

-DH