TSI titles ask us to Swapheads

TSI Design has created titles and content graphics for Channel 5’s new quiz show Swapheads, which is due to go on air from 5 August.

Client Endemol UK, which is producing the show, wanted to use the influence of 1950s and 1960s graphic design, according to Endemol UK series producer Richard Hague.

‘I’m sick of titles that are all too polished and clean,’ he says.

The titles, which have a retro, B-movie look, were inspired by the work of Saul Bass, who created opening credit sequences for classic Hitchcock titles such as Psycho, Rear Window and Vertigo, says TSI Design creative director Malcolm Dalton.

The big lettering, strong contrasts and silhouette imagery of the titles are all ‘typical markers’ of the Bass style, he explains, ‘but with a slightly modern dent in them’.

The consultancy pitched for the project, worth a £12 000 design fee, after parent company TSI Group had been selected to provide post-production and dubbing facilities.

Swapheads, which will be fronted by Johnny Ball, tests the knowledge of two contestants on each others’ specialist subjects following a day of learning with experts.