# Best boy, gaffer, catering

> A credit roll is a list of everyone who made something, set in two columns nobody stays to read. As a print it names a crew instead of a star.

August 18, 2026 · https://justog.club/stories/end-credits-typography

Two columns. Roles down the left in small capitals, names down the right. `GAFFER`. `BEST BOY`.
`SECOND ASSISTANT CAMERA`. `CATERING`.

One line is set larger than all the others. That's the only design decision in the whole thing.

## Why print a credit roll?

Because it's a list of everyone whose work you just watched and whose name you didn't read.

A film's credits are the only place in popular culture where the entire labour of a thing is
written down and shown to the public — and the convention is that the public leaves. Printing it
inverts that: the list becomes the subject rather than the appendix.

It's the same instinct behind
[a crew list where nobody's name is bigger](/stories/rowing-shirt), except here one name is,
and choosing which is the entire gift.

## What makes the typography specific?

Precise setting and strange job titles.

Credit rolls are set with unusual care: consistent leading, roles and names in different weights,
generous letterspacing on the capitals, everything aligned to a spine down the middle. It's some of
the most disciplined typesetting most people ever see, done for a page nobody looks at.

And the job titles are wonderful on their own. `BEST BOY`, `GRIP`, `FOLEY ARTIST`, `SECOND UNIT`,
`CATERING`. Half of them sound invented and none of them are.

## Whose names should be on it?

The people who actually did the thing.

Point the format at anything with a crew: a wedding with everyone who cooked, drove and set up
chairs; a house move; a school production; a small business with the staff listed by what they
really do. Give somebody the title `CATERING` who spent the day making sandwiches and the joke and
the thank-you arrive together.

That's the version worth making. A generic credit roll is a typographic exercise; this one is a
receipt for effort.

## Can I use a real film's credits?

The names are real people and the roll is part of a copyrighted work.

Credits list actual individuals in their professional capacity, and reproducing a specific film's
roll copies a portion of the film itself. Neither is available, and neither is necessary — the
*format* is industry-standard boilerplate that belongs to nobody.

Invented names, or real people who consented, are the two workable versions. Which is
[the same line as any personal detail on a garment](/stories/family-photo-gift).

## Why set one line bigger?

Because the format has no other way to say thank you.

A credit roll is deliberately egalitarian — same size, same weight, alphabetical or departmental.
Breaking that rule once, for one line, is enormously conspicuous inside the convention, and it's
invisible to anybody who doesn't know the convention.

One larger line. Not two. The moment there are two, it's a hierarchy again.

## Is it readable enough to wear?

At the right density, yes, and density is the only real risk.

A real credit roll runs to hundreds of lines. At chest scale that's grey texture — which some
people like, but it stops being a list and becomes a pattern. Around twenty-five to thirty-five
lines keeps every role legible and still reads as a roll from a distance.

Choosing which thirty is part of the work, the same way
[a life list is edited rather than reproduced](/stories/gift-for-a-birdwatcher).

## Does it print well?

Yes, with the type set larger than film would.

Small capitals with wide letterspacing hold up well because the strokes are uniform and there's air
between the letters. The two-column structure gives strong vertical edges. Nothing here fills in
provided the point size is generous.

Black with warm cream ink is the obvious pairing and it's correct — that slightly yellow white is
what credits look like projected.

## How do I get one made?

Describe the roll at [JustOG](/) — who did what, what to call them, and whose line gets to be
bigger. Pick a direction, drag the crop frame, see it composited on the real garment, and it's made
to order and shipped.

Designs other people have published are in the [shop](/shop).

Everybody left before the catering credit. It was the longest day of the shoot.