Eye Magazine

You have to hand it to Kyle Cooper. The celebrated movie titles designer quickly had the audience for last night’s D&AD President’s lecture at London’s Peacock Theatre transfixed, opening with a lengthy, well memorised passage from Shakespeare’s Henry V.

‘Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts . . . Think, when we talk of horses, that you see them / Printing their proud hoofs i’ th’ receiving earth;’

This Prologue (also the name of Cooper’s company) helps establish the seriousness and range of his presentation, which ranges from the ingenious low-budget credits for Wimbledon to the blockbuster movie titles for Mission Impossible, nailed tightly to Lalo Schifrin’s asymmetric theme.

Moreover, Cooper always insists that he is a graphic designer (he studied with Paul Rand at Yale), and you can see that the aesthetic sensibilities and craft of design, geared to an understanding of both content and his clients’ needs (‘I like to help people,’ he tells a questioner), informs every frame.

Above: Kyle Cooper / Prologue Films showreel on YouTube.

Read David Peters’ article ‘Every frame counts’ (Eye no. 66 vol. 17).

D&AD President’s lectures.