Cinderella: The Making of a Title Graphic (Logo)

The making of a title graphic for Cinderella

Hello world. As a design intern with a focus on title treatments, letters are what I live, breath and love. Right now I’m only a newbie in the field, with idols like Jessica Hische (and of course Brian and Jimmy), but I’d like to share my process. Cinderella is a story every child knows, about a fairy tale princess whose magical transformation for a night helps her find prince charming. After much debate, I chose to follow my instinct and go with the elegant swirls and flourishes of the fairy godmother’s magic. Paired with the glass of her slipper and the moon at the strike of midnight (later determined elements), viola Cinderella.

Sketching is my favorite part of the process and what I consider to be the most crucial element in a good design. Armed with a regular pencil and my favorite sketchbook, ideas are rendered swiftly and dismissed just as quickly. Choosing from bits and pieces, a rough final composition eventually emerges.

Breaking out my calligraphy pens and art pens, refinement can begin. Making use of the iPad 3 in the office, I trace comps over and over, tweaking curves and stroke weights until I’m satisfied. Once it goes digital, the type gets cut apart and reconstructed so I can fix the kerning (space between letters), x-height (height of each lower-case letter), stroke width and angle, and perfect the curved baseline. Switching back and forth from computer to sketch helps blend the precision of the computer with my hand drawn typography as Cinderella gets ready to go vector.

Adobe Illustrator, my best frienemy. Wrestling with anchor points for hours, the once rough curves become mathematically constructed. Moving to Photoshop, the styling follows. Now Photoshop hasn’t been my strong point in years, but with exploration of all the tools, filters, and effects, flat magenta letters become translucent glass. Using my drawing tablet, a starry sky and moon are painted and the type reflections touched up.