Abstract: The Art of Design
2017–2019NetflixDocumentary
One designer an episode, with a title sequence rebuilt each time in that designer's own idiom — the rare series whose titles are the argument.
Abstract: The Art of Design opens with a main title sequence of 79 seconds.
At 79 seconds, it opens well above the 37-second median for documentary sequences in this catalogue.
It arrived on Netflix in 2017, when Mystery Science Theater 3000, Arrested Development and Top Boy were also on the network.
The opening titles
Season 1
79sFan upload of the first episode's sequence, the Christoph Niemann one.
More documentary opening titles from the 2010s
1 sequenceThe Great British Bake Off
Bunting, a tent and a xylophone — twenty seconds of deliberate gentleness, and one of the most effective pieces of format branding on British television.
- Season 1
1 sequenceStorage Wars
Abandoned storage lockers auctioned unseen, with the bidders introduced like a heist crew.
- Season 1
1 sequenceDance Moms
A Pittsburgh dance studio, the children in it, and the mothers watching from behind the glass.
- Season 1
1 sequenceThe Jinx
Andrew Jarecki's Robert Durst films, opened by a sequence that tells you nothing and implies everything.
- Season 1
1 sequenceQueer Eye
Two minutes of the five hosts introduced one at a time, in the format's own house style of relentless warmth.
- Season 1
1 sequenceMaking a Murderer
Manitowoc County in winter over a plucked string figure — the sequence that defined what a Netflix true-crime series would look like for the next decade.
- Season 1