Nadia Tzuo on Storytelling Through Title Design

0:00From the Association of Registered Graphic Designers, this is the DesignThinkers Podcast. DesignThinkers is Canada's largest graphic design conference. Since the year 2000, the RDD has been bringing together visionaries from a range of disciplines to explore creativity and the design process. Join our host and RDD president, Nicola Hamilton, as she sits down for casual and candid conversations with DesignThinkers speakers, both past and present. This week on the Design Thinkers podcast, I'm joined by Nadia Zuo, an Emmy award-winning motion designer and director whose title sequences have become cultural touchstones.

0:39Nadia's work spans television, film, and streaming, with credits on The Last of Us, Shogun, American Horror Story, Pachinko, Star Trek Beyond, and Captain Marvel. Her sequences don't just introduce a story, they set its mood, build its world, and often become iconic in their own right. In this episode, Nadia shares how she approaches title design as both storytelling and branding, the deep research that fuels her process, and why she thinks in moods before visuals. We talk about the importance of cultural specificity, the role of collaboration, and how streaming has reshaped the way audiences engage with titles.

1:13Whether you're a designer curious about motion, a film lover fascinated by world building, or someone interested in the intersection of story and design, this conversation is packed with insight and inspiration. Hey, Nadia. How's it going? Good. Thanks for doing this. Thanks for having me. We're excited to have you at Design Thinkers. Yeah, I'm so excited. Thanks again for having me. I mean, I've never been to Toronto, so. Yay. Where are you based? Los Angeles. Okay, you're in LA. I I figured, but wasn't certain. Well, I'm really curious. What actually drew you into title design and motion work in the first place?

1:58I wasn't intentionally started to do this, but when I was back in the days, I was in art school at Art Center, I really liked building environments and there's a lot of historic study goes into it. So I took a lot of classes for basic, more like a concept artist. So So I was really into perspective drawings of buildings, you know, like those ones that has no people involved. And it gives me a sense of calm. and and um I think back in the days that wasn't the top you know interest for most of the students in entertainment because I guess most people are more drawn into characters but I just you know really like to draw buildings and environments so I did a lot of environmental concept design and basically matte painting and I was I was originally in graphic design at our center um but so I had a graphic design grad show and then I just put that pile of drawings on the side quietly um during the graduation and um for some reason the the first company I worked for um Prologue Prologue's owner Kyle Cooper went to the grad show and he just you know walk around and look at that pile of drawings and then and then um I I was I end up work there the next Monday that's how he went that fast that fast yeah he's he's be really fast of you know looking resource I guess oh that's amazing so that that was like you were at your grad show and somebody saw this work you were doing sort of outside of your traditional design school work and saw something in it yeah I I think um that wasn't the most unusual things in terms of motion graphics because a lot of people I graduate with end up in the same industry.

4:36But after being asked a few times, I really thought about it. And it turned out it was really is that pile of drawings, like nothing else. Yeah, so the job was for a movie called Noah. And it was back in the days that was two, three years ahead of production for the actual movie. But there was an opening sequence that's, you know, telling the biblical story of the first seven days that the world has been born, but in a sort of contemporary way. So I was doing all the style frames and concept design for that sequence that involves, you know, a blend of biblical stories with weirdly scientific facts.

5:39I don't know if that's controversial, but it has a lot of, you know, dinosaurs and monkeys, you know. So it started with the forming of the ocean and the volcano erupts and then, you know, the form of life started in the ocean and it slowly sort of emerged towards the land and eventually becomes human. and humans start to fight and just bring us through the journey to the stage where the story begins. So you're working on this one gig, Noah, with Prologue. You're sort of recruited out of your grad show. What happens from there? I just keep working there for the next, like, seven years. Yeah, and then after that, I had a brief period of freelancing and I went to work at Elastic for another 7, 8, 9, 10 years.

6:47That's pretty much how it was. it wasn't like I've been through a million places but it's rather it's pretty focused to put it in a nice way I know you best for lots of your title sequence work and so where do you go from the concepting work into some of the sequence based stuff I think it's sort of the same thing and it's just based on what type of narrative we're working with. Some requires more concept art and some are more

7:29information driven. So I think Prologue has a focus on films back in the days where streaming wasn't even a thing so it all started from film and now elastic has I think a broader spectrum of work yeah so you're sort of doing you're still doing a little bit of all of it there's still some concepting work in your day-to-day yeah I I've never thing saying that I only want to do title but I don't know I think most of my work involves certain degree of cultural narrative yeah no I think that's fair I mean lots of your titles do have lots of sort of concept artwork in them for sure okay so talk to me about like what what is like a dream project for you like what is what is the sort of best way to start a project what makes you most excited because I think often the work that you are doing is like giving life to an idea in some way you're making up a lot of stuff I think the dream situation is relying on good communication so so the more time we we have we we talk to the showrunners the better the result would be.

8:59I think some of the more commercial based projects doesn't necessarily have the luxury to, you know, to develop a long term conversation. And luckily, I think The Last of Us and Shogun both let us involved in the very early stage. Like nothing is even shot or, you know, everything is a little unclear, at least for us. I mean, apparently people has done a ton of work over there, but relatively we were involved in a pre-production stage of the show instead of the last minute thing like, oh, we have a show coming out next month we need to tie the sequence so it wasn't like that yeah yeah you got engaged from the beginning which is every designer's dream right like to be at the table from the beginning is always the aspiration yeah definitely do you want to maybe like walk us through one of those processes like either the last of us or shogun whichever whichever feels like the more interesting one for you to walk through the sort of behind the scenes but from brief to delivery, like how you sort of think about those projects?

10:18I think, for example, The Last of Us started off of, it was a company-wide participation with everyone basically contribute one or two ideas.

10:37And maybe give us an idea of how big the company is. Like if it's a company-wide thing, how many people are sort of participating in that brainstorm sesh? I think at that particular time, I don't ever know, to be honest. I think it was like 20 people. I mean, for the people involved in the brainstorming. Yeah. And I'm just talking about the design, the in-house design team. not the scale of the company because the company is, we have a lot of different departments, so I don't necessarily know. Yeah, but sort of 20 people are participating in the brainstorm session. Yeah, somewhat between 10 and 20.

11:30And then the show running side took the brainstorm presentation and they sort of think about it for another half year. And I think there's the other thing where along with the progress of the development of the show, a lot of things become more clear for sure. and at that point I think everyone started to feel like grabbing something more concrete for the vibe um what it needs to be and and um the team uh the last of this team get back to us with more narrowed down thoughts. And then we started from there. Amazing. So they take like sort of six months to get back to you. Have you all but forgotten most of the projects at that point?

12:41Like, do you have to re-remind yourself of the original ideas? For me, I can only speak for myself, but I think I tend to think too much, putting out ideas so uh it's not like a thing you would forget but um i think because of you know part of the nature of the industry there's a lot of things up in the air so um i personally try not to you know overly attached to it it's so it's not like

13:20creating too much emotional feedback that's unnecessary like thinking oh the project where did that go uh is it going to come back so um try to not do that well so talk to me about like some of that feedback so you have all of these ideas and then the team obviously gets clear the show running team gets clear on what sort of makes sense as they get further along on their side of the production and what comes back from the last of us like are you are you surprised at the direction that they chose are you excited about the direction they chose i i was happy that um um the team um so craig and neil the other amazing thing is they work directly with us so we were able to hear a lot of thoughts from them, but I was very happy to hear that there is a sense that people are resonating to my strange research about human art basically fungus.

14:38I will explain more with pictures during the talk, I hope. Yeah, I mean, I think most of our listeners have probably seen The Last of Us at some point, but like the graphics are beautiful. Like that world building, as much as it's terrifying in moments, that world building is so incredible. Yeah, so the idea is the more research I do, the more it seems like this kind of virus, fungus, or germs, they do harmful things to us, but that's what we're doing to the planet anyway. We're the fungus. Yeah, because they spread and we spread and in the same way. And I think it's all for like, the survival of pieces, species.

15:39So you're really in the research then? Like you're really in the research? I think for title sequence, I like to find this singular idea that's sort of what the story is about. And that idea for The Last of Us was survival. Like to the, down to the, you know, genetic level. so yeah and then okay so then from there like how collaborative is the process you have sort of folks from the show running side who are like engaging with you directly which is amazing and as you start to sort of build out some of those assets is it like a real sort of back and forth the whole time or are you developing like a good chunk of deliverables and then sending them off yeah there were definitely a few imagery that turned out to be very powerful that helped us for example, the the map one.

16:40So there's a lot of science research of how fungus communicate with each other. And that sort of turned out to be the same as the network refilled. So for example, the, when we look at the satellite image of the Earth, it just looks like fungus at nighttime. So you see how the network of the cities from the sky. I think that kind of things just give us like a good fundamental idea to start with. And then there's back and forth of other ideas, like because the species of fungus is just huge and they all have different colors different shapes and then it's it's just so easy connection to imagine how they could form different things yeah i mean it's terrifying how easy it is to imagine if the last of us taught us anything I'm curious too like we talked a little bit about TV you you do lots of film work as well and then some game work too yeah yeah I think that was part of the cinematic family that um we it's basically the same type of sequence I would say because the nowadays the games need a good they need a book uh they need a good bookends too yeah so when you're working on games are you just working on those bookends like the sort of beginning and the end or are you doing sort of world building throughout usually there would be a bible for us but it's kind of solving the same problems if the world we we have a unknown world to be told to whoever is about to dive into the story so it's it's more of like a conditioning piece okay yeah I want to talk about the idea of the bookends a little bit so you've talked about this how you've called titles title sequences the bookends of a story talk to me about what that means to you and maybe how that meaning has evolved I think the general idea is that they serve like book covers.

19:16So they have the mission of telling people what the show is about or what is what it's there that they're going to invest their time into. and some of the story has a more dire request to be solved is there for whatever reasons the audience is going to be landing in the middle of something and that needs to be explained in the intro so sometimes it's more like that but I think for most of the time it's it's like a conditioning process um even during our childhood when the title sequence are really simple but you always remember that song that you know get people excited to you know get ready to sit in front of the tv and you may just be like grabbing drinks during that time but it's still an announcement of um some sort of journey yeah absolutely i think often about how sort of title sequences have become kind of the branding for a show in some way like they often become the thing that we actually see before we sit down and watch the show itself yeah and it's definitely could be a large part of marketing, especially for the broadcast side.

20:55Because a lot of the shows, recurring shows, you just need to have that glue to bring people back together, especially between different seasons. No, I think that makes a lot of sense. You've worked on multiple seasons. What happens when the titles sort of change or morph? like how do you sort of think about altering them from season to season or not altering them sometimes sometimes if if people decide to maintain the brand things don't necessarily need to change and sometimes um the projects gets more ambitious like we want to complete different things for each season that happens too so yeah but but there's always something stay the same for example the the american horror story it it has a completely different title each time but there are elements that's always very iconic for example the the credit the font or the music would always stay yeah so sort of like branding and the way it evolves too right pieces that are not changing while the other parts around it do yeah um it's the same thing with pachinko where the season two season one has even having different music but they still have a dance sequence that looks completely different and even more ambitious that's um i think for the first season we had uh the dance sequence was shot in one set and then the the season two was evolving from different time periods.

22:41So you would see a, you know, vintage Pachinko parlor and then there's a more flashy new one from the 80s. I mean, it sounds like research is like such a big part of your practice. And I think a little bit about, like I'm glad you brought up Pachinko. Pachinko and Shogun are like such culturally specific stories. And so what kind of research are you sort of doing in that time or who are you bringing in in order to make sure you're like doing that the service it deserves? I think it's a collaboration sometimes with the show inside. They have a research team because they need to do the actual show.

23:24So of course, they sort of research of everything. And it would be nice to have some access to it. but largely because we often worked on such singular ideas. For example, we do the stone garden for shogun, and so everything around the garden, we need to look into it as much as we can. Yeah, so just checking, backing up that research all the time. Yeah, and then for Pachinko, there is an archival history sequence that's tailored to the story. So there will be like thousands of archival like we went through, like everything possible online. You must feel like you become an expert in these like very particular moments in time.

24:27Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's not like I would say I'm an expert, but we literally have to go through everything that's possibly found online. And that's kind of something I have to do it myself because it's so specific. Like we work with Sue, the showrunner. She's great and she really knows what she's looking for. Pachinko really focused on family and, you know, this sort of universal emotions between people. And I think that's why the show has been successful because it doesn't necessarily only focus on a particular group of people, but that sense of family survival story, it hits on something that's inside everybody.

25:38But sometimes when you tell people, Oh, I'm looking for archival footage during the World War II, World War I, and then you end up getting a lot of like, you know, army stuff or explosions. That's not necessarily... It doesn't really relate to what you're trying to tell.

26:10yeah because I think war is such a dramatic distraction in that sense you're trying to tell a story that's about people not about the war yeah well it sounds like you're putting a lot of sort of energy into setting the right mood for a piece that's sort of like emotional resonance piece. Is that true? Like you're really thinking about the tone or the mood of something? Taking a little break here to remind you that this podcast is an extension of the Design Thinkers Conference. That's Canada's largest annual design conference hosted by the Association of Registered Graphic Designers. Since the late 2000s, the RGD has been recording Design Thinkers presentations and making them available to all of our members.

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27:44You need to be a member to access this valuable resource. So head to rgd.ca slash membership to learn more. yeah that's that's basically like 100 like 99 percent of the work i mean in terms of figuring out the concept for a title sequence do you think about those title sequences as like visual identity systems like you're setting a mood you're setting a tone do you think about how those pieces will get pulled apart or put back together or do you think about it as a as a whole always sometimes i do title reveals that's more of the branding elements for example the the new hunger again um so we do design a logo which is apparently going to have a big impact on marketing do you know that going in that the logos that the thing you're designing is going to have a big role in the marketing?

28:48Or do you find out after you've designed the asset? Well, I think in our industry is... Sometimes the same show would have different logos. So one is the in-film logo and one is the marketing logo that goes on the poster. So yeah, but I guess if something ends up to be, iconic and people remember then the more it's going to live on yeah so you're not always sure when you're making something if it's going to end up being a big marketing piece or not uh definitely not um i want to ask you some more sort of general general things so one like what makes a title sequence like really successful in your eyes like what's the thing that you're always hoping to achieve when you start a project my top priority is to design something that helps the story okay yeah story first yeah I think that's pretty much I think that's the part that that could be easy more easily explained as a book cover because that's how you want people to engage the story as a book cover and not to give people the wrong expectations with the book cover a little bit of surprise it's helpful but you know only when that happens in the right direction well and i've heard from other sort of title sequence designers that sometimes you don't have a very good understanding of the story yet like sometimes you maybe have a pilot sometimes you don't have the entirety of the piece of work usually we either being given minimal amount of story or or we would be given the entire script of the whole thing yeah yeah so you're sort of envisioning that world while the show running team is building that world in some way yeah um but i would try my best to to try to be immersive to that world whatever that is even when sometimes we don't necessarily know a lot about them.

31:24That actually happens really rare because nowadays people are more taking title sequence as an important element than before. So we were, in most cases, we were given the appropriate understanding brief to the story. But even sometimes that we don't have much information, at least we will know, okay, this is a story about what's in which time error in somewhere. so the look would be built around that limited information and usually usually that works you just said that you think title sequences are like given more importance now what do you think caused that change? I think it's mostly because of it was the change happened from the streaming service the blooming era of the streaming service that before the title sequence wasn't such as a big deal.

32:45I mean, it was a big deal, but it, I think for the TV, the broadcast side, people are more leaning towards promoting actors or you know life action sections or you know iconic music that's that's when we were kids in the 80s 90s and you would hear the song and the the sequence is just maybe a collage of you know all the explosions from the previous season or something but but yeah and there's a lot of ways to see it but how I see it is when Netflix and other services trying to have their own stories and they wanted to be very cinematic and the standard of one standard of the cinematic um I think a lot of elements from the film has been has been introduced to the city uh the tv side so now it's really hard to tell if you see a movie whether oh is it a show or a movie um so because it's it's almost equal right now yeah no I think that's totally true you like go to pick something on Netflix and you get there and you're like, oh, this is a series.

34:22Yeah, it's kind of ambiguous now because movies could be longer because they know you're going to watch it at home. And the TV series, they're aiming for a higher production value. They may be shorter to the point that couldn't this just be one movie? so so yeah the foundry is definitely not there anymore I want to like shift our focus a little bit to some of your like personal practice like you also sort of work in traditional and digital media and I'm so curious how that like practice influences your like professional work or maybe me why you keep doing that work outside of your day-to-day I think doing things by hand is just something that's very um for the sake of mental health or sanity yeah i think also also it's like you're like doing something if there are people watching me it's like seeing ice melting that's kind of i think that's kind of something that's fundamental to artists that's that's making things and not really asking for any sort of attention.

35:50So it's almost like, okay, I'm drawing this curve for the next hour. It's like nothing to look at here, go away. Yeah, like the practice part of it. Kind of. No, I mean, I think there's something so important about like making work for you in a world where like we spend our nine to five making work for other people yeah I think especially I I always see um the type of work for the entertainment industry is is applied art meaning it's providing a service to a bigger story so So it might sound negative, but it's made for the story. It's not made for myself. That would be a little selfish. It's not like I like to draw animals, so I need to have an animal in every single one of my work.

36:55And in that case, I would draw animals on my own time.

37:05So I think it's just sort of a reminder for the part of being an artist and what artists do because I don't want to be I don't want to end up be you know going to a museum and look at the art thinking oh I'm going to use this for the next title sequence I think that's that's not how I want to become I think that's so fair and I think it's good advice like it is it's a good reminder for all of us to like look after our creative selves as well outside of the client work. Often for the podcast, a lot of our listeners tend to be emerging designers, folks that are sort of trying to find their footing who weren't as lucky as you and who maybe weren't recruited at their grad show on the spot.

37:56And I'm always curious what other designers advice might be for those people who are sort of looking to find their footing. And in your case, I'm curious what your advice would be to somebody who's looking to get into motion graphics into title sequences into world building i think definitely keep making what you like to make um because if i don't have that pile of joints it's questionable whether i would be here And the truth is, title sequence isn't really a thing that has a particular look. So nowadays, some people might think, oh, it's going to look 3D and it's going to look, you know, movie lighting, shallow, that's the field kind of thing.

38:54That's the title sequence, but it's actually not. So, there are so many people who were good at a certain field of art. For example, we had the American Horror Story Season 4 was all made with stop motion, and then we worked with stop motion artists. His name is Austin, and he just 3D print monsters. and he animates them. So it's not necessarily being considered as a thing for a title sequence, but we literally had a circus miniature in the garage and everything was shot for real and it was really creepy. Yeah, so whether it's like some people are really passionate in photography, you know, underwater shoots of like explosions or any sort of weird stuff, or people like, you know, craft in fabric or just anything.

40:15Some people are just really good at sketching. There could be a time that the motion graphics industry needs really good, you know, real-time sketches that's always around. So I would say anything could be a title sequence. So if people, even just on the side, have something that's, you know, one of the best around, then I think there's definitely a big chance that one day they will be found and prepared for the production. yeah lean into the things that you you love that you like that you're curious about I think that's great advice a couple sort of like lightning round fast questions before we wrap up um I'm super curious do you have a favorite title sequence of all time no I have this salad yeah I I had a hard time answering like you know my favorite work or my favorite um food I won't ask you your favorite food don't worry I have a problem with ranking like I can't make rankings because everything has their own thing for sure but it was there was the the first title sequence that came into my mind was actually the there was a show back in the day called Carnival and I think that was when HBO was first introduced in my village.

42:06I mean it's back in the days like sometimes especially when I was a kid or I forgot how young but that was the first title sequence that sort of hit me like oh that's kind of cool okay I don't think I've seen it but I'm going to go find the YouTube video after this yeah it's a tarot card sequence cool and yeah the show is very mysterious um not necessarily all about tarot cards but i just thought it was really cool that's making connection of tarot cards and you know hints of the story i think at least for me i just wasn't

43:07notice that's part of the you know mystery that could be introduced to the show well it's so funny because that's sort of what you what you love about title sequences is that they like add to the story in some way yeah and then I didn't realize that until recent years that um elastic actually did that type of sequence

43:36amazing full circle yeah it was like you know this sort of like kind of moment yeah yeah everything will be as the universe intends yeah but but i swear i didn't notice that that's that's not like me intentionally trying to you know to to have that full circle experience it it just can't that's usually how they happen i'm curious about a motion design trend that you're sort of sick of seeing something that you're you wish would just take like a rest a pause the least favorite trend i think the the slope of ai could take some rest for a little bit yeah something you don't like um i think i think we're still at the sort of honeymoon stage of people having the joy of watching ai making art But eventually, we need to, you know, whether using AI or not, we just need to stop being distracted and, you know, treating it as a tool that helps people, especially help us as artists without having unnecessary emotions to it because some people might have a whole lot expectation that people some people are 100 % relying on it like almost like hitting the bottom and waiting for it to show you something and some people are you know you know allergic to it and uh for good reasons but i think at the end it needs to be transcend into a tool like any other digital tools that could be helping us that's the hope do you mean like ai actually doing some of the sequencing work or like AI generated artwork?

46:03Yeah. It gives people illusions that they are making art, but they're kind of not. I mean, if they have full control, I think it's like having a friend or a kid who's just sitting there and doing things. And then you tell them, draw this. and they draw something.