What Font do Old Film Intertitles Use?

Typography is important in recreating any film in which intertitles were used. Title cards were an important element of early silent films as they pushed the plot along. And could guide narrative that an audience may otherwise struggle to understand through poorly synchronized music alone. If you’re attempting to create the old title cards for a silent film. In an effort to recreate a silent film’s look and feel, you might be wondering, “What font do old film intertitles use?”

We all recognize the characteristic long-lined letters from those early silent films when we see them.

While fonts may have been limited in the early days, when typewriters were essentially the only option we had outside of hand-drawn intertitles.

So what font do old film intertitles use? And how can we recreate it to achieve the look and feel of a silent film?

What are Intertitles?

Intertitles, also referred to as title cards, from silent films produced in the early 1900s did not have the ability for various font options the way a title card would in today’s filmmaking.

There were not special graphics nor were there unlimited typography options at that time. Thus, you’re probably wondering, “What font do old Film Intertitles use?” 

Unlike Any Other

The truth is, the original font that was used to produce intertitles in films was nothing like the fonts that are currently available in Word or your typical word processing software.

Therefore, if you wanted to recreate a film from the silent film era that included intertitles in their original appearance as they were?

You would have to focus a lot of your time on how you would recreate the font.

Hand-Crafted

Original intertitles in films from the 1900s, particularly silent films used a hand drawn font. Which was painted on a flat surface and then filmed using the camera to produce the title card page. 

We didn’t have printers and advanced computer systems and word processors back then. In fact, typewriters were mostly used back this far in time.

Therefore, if you’re wondering, “What font do old film intertitles use?” You’re going to have to dig deeper than you might expect.

Silent Film Font

Since the old film intertitles were hand drawn and painted, there is no single style that was used or font that was used. Each film had its own intertitles that would have been drawn by someone. 

So how can you recreate intertitles from past films with your current software? If you’ve got Adobe Illustrator, you’ll be happy to know that there is a font called “Silent Film Font”.

Which compares pretty well to the old intertitles that would appear in some of the earliest films from the silent era. Although it’s not necessarily THE font used in ALL silent films!

It certainly is an amazing replica that will have you and your audience feeling like you’ve traveled back in time to a new area when you see it. That’s for sure!