This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

When new movies come out most of the praise goes to the director and the lead actors

But there are so many other people involved in a film and a lot of them are designers

They're a costume designers and set designers

But also graphic designers working behind the scenes on all of the graphic objects that you might see in a film

And I do mean every single graphic object

Anything with lettering on it, anything with pattern on it and anything with illustration on it and most things made out of paper

This is Annie Atkins. My name is Annie Atkins and I'm a graphic designer for the film industry

Over the course of her career Atkins has designed all kinds of graphic props

Telegrams, vintage cigarette packaging, maps, love letters, books, poems

Any kind of chocolate box or food packaging at all labeling passports, fake CIA identification cards

And with all of these objects Atkins needs to choose or design the lettering and make sure the paper is just right

All these small design decisions that contribute to creating a cohesive visual world for the film

As graphic designs film we really have two main priorities when we start designing any proper set piece

The first is to set the period and the second is to set the location

So that when the audience start watching the movie they know immediately where the story is being told and when it's taking place

But I think the other thing that we have to do is we have to also try to tell the story at hand as well

with graphics

So for example

If you see a sign in the background of a New York subway scene that says walk don't run you can bet any seconds after you see that the characters are actually going to start running

All the graphic design you see in a film has a job to do it's moving the story forward

Even if background signage seems to have a kind of a subliminal message

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