The Dollhouse




Silver Award Winner at the Graphis New Talent 2025 Awards in the Design - Film Title, Film/Video category.

Title Sequence Animation
2024

“The Dollhouse” is a fictional teen drama + mystery TV series. It follows four teenage friends who find themselves trapped in a mysterious and sinister hidden ‘dollhouse’ orchestrated by an evil hooded figure 'X’. The girls must decipher cryptic puzzles and confront haunting memories to escape the twisted dollhouse before it's too late.

The project consists of a pitch outlining the characters, genre, graphic elements, typography, and style, all culminating in a TV title sequence based on the thematic elements of the story.




Inspiration


The style of the title sequence was inspired by the iconic mystery games, novels, and films of the past. Utilizing silhouettes and distinctive character coloring was important to me when approaching the title sequence. 

Due to the villain’s unnatural and robotic nature, I took the approach of a geometric type style. Some of the linework in this precedent inspired the lines expanded into the journey of the title sequence later.

Non-design inspo was sourced to get a feel of the real life setting of the show. 

Style/Concept
Type
Non-Design




Strategy


The title sequence takes the viewers into the world of the dollhouse. Below ground we can see a window into the girls lives. The red circle of X’s eye traveling along the thin red line symbolizes “X” watching their every movement and the “mental maze” of the dollhouse. 

The girls must play games and solve puzzles in order to discover X’s true identity, there are four puzzles/games shown, represented in the girls’ four colors. Type is geometric and robotic symbolizing the coldness of the environment, the color of the type changes to red when X‘s circle interacts with it. The girls are represented with filled in shapes while the elements in X’s domain are shown through outlines and strokes, furthering the visual separation between the protagonists and antagonist. 

Final Storyboard





Final Title Sequence

Jayne Harlan