Title sequence design

A title sequence is a promise

Before a word is spoken, the opener tells the audience what register they are in: serious or playful, premium or immediate, considered or live. Get it wrong and the first two minutes of the programme spend themselves correcting the expectation. That is why title design is closer to identity design than to animation.

How I approach one

Find the single idea

For Andi Soual — a talk show built around asking — the idea was a person leaning toward something they don't yet understand, which became a whole language of silhouette. One idea, extended into a logo, a title sequence, on-air graphics and studio backgrounds.

Pick the material before the motion

Titles are remembered as texture more than as movement. Gold calligraphy on black marble. Smoke, embers and metallic type. Glass quotation forms. Choosing the material honestly is most of the design; the motion then has one job, which is to reveal it well.

Time the reveal

Almost every weak title sequence has the same fault: it shows everything too early and then has nowhere to go. Hold longer than feels comfortable, reveal in a defined order, and let the last beat land on the show name with nothing else moving.

Sequences I've built

• Menna Wa Fena, Season 2 — luxury gold Arabic calligraphy on black marble, produced entirely with generative AI.
• Cinematic Title Sequence — an Arabic flagship open built on smoke, embers and metallic typography; Blender 3D combined with Runway ML elements.
• Andi Soual — silhouette-led opener plus full visual identity; the show was an Apple Podcasts Best of 2025 pick and won the Shams Award for Best Arabic Podcast 2025.
• Al-Mashhad Al-Masri — glass quotation forms and a restrained editorial language framing serious political discussion.
• Bil Tawfiq — gold lettering, glass rings and floating particles; a premium ident designed and composited entirely in After Effects.

Arabic titles are their own problem

Arabic title design is not English title design with a different font. The script connects, the eye enters from the right, and calligraphic forms carry cultural weight that a geometric sans does not. A reveal that draws a Latin word letter by letter can look wrong on Arabic, where the stroke is continuous. More on how I handle Arabic →