The archive · Design & Visual · Product decision · 2023–2024
Rain Dogs types its credits in lettering found on London's streets
For HBO and BBC1's Rain Dogs, designers built a custom typeface for actor cards and end credits from the graffiti, signs and printed ephemera of London.
Sid Gentle Films (Rain Dogs)
What it had to solve
Rain Dogs, an HBO and BBC1 series, is an unconventional family comedy about Costello Jones — a single mother, aspiring writer and peep-show dancer — who is evicted from her flat and must navigate London with her daughter Iris. The show's actor cards and end credits needed lettering that belonged to that street-level world.
How it works
Rain Dogs, an HBO and BBC1 series, follows Costello Jones, a single mother, aspiring writer and peep-show dancer, and her daughter Iris as they navigate London after being evicted from their flat. It is an unconventional family comedy rooted in the city's streets.
For the show's actor cards and end credits, the designers did not reach for an existing typeface. Instead they researched graffiti, street signs and the printed ephemera found on London's streets, and built a custom typeface from that material.
The result is lettering that belongs to the same London the characters were evicted into, so the credits introduce the show's world before the first scene. D&AD preserves the work in its Type Design & Lettering archive for 2024; the page records no viewing figures.
Why it lands
- The heroine's story begins with eviction, so the city's street layer — not a polished studio font — was the honest source for the show's lettering.
- A custom face built from graffiti, signs and ephemera makes the credits feel collected from London rather than designed in a studio.
- Because the type carries the setting, the title sequence stops being an intermission and becomes part of the storytelling.
- Researching real street material gave the design team forms no library font could supply, and each one carries the show's context.
What it did
The type carries the setting before a scene plays: credits set in lettering drawn from street signs, graffiti and printed ephemera put the audience on the pavement with Costello and Iris. D&AD preserves the work in its Type Design & Lettering archive for 2024, which records no audience metrics.
What you can take
When the setting is the story, make the lettering out of that setting: type drawn from a city's own signs and graffiti turns the credits into a piece of the world rather than a label on it.
Since then
The HBO/BBC1 series aired in 2023, and the title identity appears in D&AD's awards archive as a Type Design & Lettering entry for 2024; the page records no audience metrics. The lasting artifact is the typeface itself, which keeps retelling the show's eviction story in its letterforms.
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