Concept and creative process
Opening titles for the long-running talk show, in which Michael Parkinson conversed with a series of celebrity guests. The title sequence for this series was a purely typographic list of the surnames of previous guests, set in a colour outline version of the 'Parkinson' type font. The names were arranged in lines and filmed backlit on a rostrum camera, beginning as a single line and repeating to create a block of seven lines which zoomed up past camera fading out progressively as the following block caught up. The lines of names were so arranged that the letters of the ‘Parkinson’ logo were highlighted in white and deposited next to each other in the lower third area of the screen, building up the logo as the sequence progressed. By the time the logo was fully formed, the final block of names had faded out and the logo was left superimposed over the live shot of the stairs, waiting for the host’s appearance.