Design & Cinema: an analysis of the graphic language as a narrative strategy in Hollywood's contemporary films

Abstract

Graphic design elements have always been part of cinema’s hybrid language, as a material of expression manifested through the visual channel, together with the cinematographic image. This graphic language is present throughout an entire filmic narrative in the form of verbal, pictorial and schematic elements applied to extra-diegetic titles and animations, as well as intra-diegetic printed or handmade graphic props, which together form a movie’s graphic identity and aid in conveying meaning to the narrative. The objective of this research is to investigate the intentional and strategic use of the graphic language in movies – also referred to as graphic configurations – as decisive or secondary elements in unfolding a narrative, contextualised into Hollywood’s contemporary cinema. Through qualitative and quantitative methods, the research develops into historical and theoretical investigations, drawing constant parallels between cinema’s and design’s fields of study, which leads to the proposal of a system for analysing a movie’s graphic strategy, by systematically recording the appearance of graphic configurations in movies and interpreting their meaning based on a set of categories and rules. This system is verified through the application to four detailed case studies, which together with the other findings present in the research, culminate in ten major conventions or guidelines for the further use of graphic configurations in the construction of any narrative film. The major conclusions also include the identification of the three main functions and levels of representation acquired by the graphic language in movies.