The End of 2009

Appropriately enough for the end of the year, the Movie Title Stills Collection now has a set of “The End” titles from Warner Bros. movies, from 1925 (the earliest available on DVD) to 1967 (when the practice ended). As usual, these are nearly all hand lettered. There is some consistency to the designs, almost as if it were treated as logos. This may have been done on purpose, as a way of branding the pictures, but it seems more likely that is was simple expediency, reusing the same artwork to save time and money, with variations reflecting the shifting tastes over time of the artists involved.