Enter your text herIt was such a pleasure teaming up with the 20th Century Studios, Hulu, and Disney crew to work on the Rosaline title treatment. It’s a retelling of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet from the perspective of Romeo’s ex, Rosaline, played by Kathryn Dever. Rosaline is mentioned briefly in Shakespeare’s original text but almost always left out of film adaptations till now. Based on the book “When You Were Mine” by Rebecca Serle and executive produced by Dever, Rosaline is a modern take on a period piece: like Marie Antoinette meets 10 Things I Hate About You. Likewise, Jess and the Disney team wanted the title treatment to feel contemporary. The final logo (shown above) is a blend of a modern serif with 14th and 15th century swash elements and letterforms mixed in. Don’t miss Rosaline streaming on Hulu!

Scope

— Custom Type / Lettering

— Title Treatment Exploration

20th Century Credits for Art Direction:

Jess Linares, VP Creative Advertising

Caroline Hiatt, Creative Advertising Manager

The Kickoff

Jess, our fearless AD, wanted us to present a wide swath of options that ranged from modern takes on lettering from the time of the play, to full on modern options. In our research we looked to typography and lettering from around the 14th and 15th centuries, when Shakespeare’s play, Romeo and Juliet, was based. We dug through archives like the digital collection at the NYPL and the Letterform Archive and found lots of calligraphy and drop caps and blackletter that we could take the bones of and add a modern twist.

Concepting & Themes

Since this wasn’t a super strict historical retelling, we also played with more outside of the box options that just leant into young love: scrawling your lovers’ name in your notebook, hearts dotting i’s, handdrawn scripts, block lettering, and more playful options.

All images and stills from Rosaline are the copyright of 20th Century