09/20/2020 UPDATE:
Congratulations to Digital Kitchen on their Outstanding Main Title Design Emmy win for Godfather of Harlem and to composer Nathan Barr for his Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music award for Hollywood.

Digital Kitchen has previously received the Emmy in Outstanding Main Title Design for their work on shows Six Feet Under (2001) and Dexter (2006). This is the second Emmy win for creative director Mason Nicoll and the first for art director and lead designer Peter Pak. 

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The 2020 Emmy nominations were announced on July 28th, including the nominees for this year’s Outstanding Main Title Design award. This is the first time in the award's history that a total of seven title sequences have been nominated.

Santa Monica-based studio Elastic continues to dominate the category, claiming four of the seven nods for their work on the openings of Amazon's Carnival Row, Apple TV+'s The Morning Show, Neflix's The Politician, and HBO's Watchmen. Elastic has previously won the title design Emmy in 2019 with Game of Thrones (Season 8), in 2016 for The Man in the High Castle, in 2014 for True Detective, and in 2011 with Game of Thrones (Season 1). The studio has been a powerhouse at the Primetime Emmys over the past decade, with four wins and 19 nominations since 2011.

This is the eleventh Emmy nomination for Patrick Clair, the tenth for Raoul Marks, the fifth for Yongsub Song, the fourth for Lisa Bolan and the third for Felix Soletic. Heidi Berg, Mert Kizilay, Carlo Sa, and Mason Nicoll (who was previously nominated a whopping 18 years ago for his work on HBO's The Mind of the Married Man) have all now been nominated twice. First-time nominees include Hazel Baird, Olga Midlenko, Henry DeLeon, all with Elastic, and newcomer Allie Fisher of Godfrey Dadich Partners. The record for the most nominations for an individual designer in a single year still belongs to Billy Pittard, who received four nominations in 1997. 

HBO's Westworld is raking in the nods with its third title design Emmy nomination. The show also received nominations for its season one and two openings. Netflix, which made inroads into the category in 2015, saw two of its series honoured with Emmy nominations this year, Abstract: The Art of Design and The Politician. This is the first Outstanding Main Title Design Emmy nod for streaming services Epix and the new Apple TV+, which was launched in 2019. As predicted in 2015, cable networks are now the minority in this category and streaming services are expected to continue to dominate.

Title sequences that were grievously overlooked this year were those for See designed by Imaginary Forces and featuring music by Bear McCreary and goosebump-inducing sound design by Trevor Gates, Shine's refreshing quick-hit openers for Dickinson, and Blue Spill's affecting titles for six-part docuseries Why We Hate.

In related categories, one of the nominated title sequences – Carnival Row – also received a nod in the Outstanding Original Main Title Theme Music category.

If this year’s Outstanding Main Title Design nods indicate anything, it’s that Elastic has cornered the market for title design on television.

Watch all of the nominated sequences below!

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ABSTRACT: THE ART OF DESIGN (Season 2)
Netflix
Studio: Godfrey Dadich Partners
Creative Director: Allie Fisher

 

 

CARNIVAL ROW
Amazon Prime Video
Studio: Elastic
Director: Lisa Bolan

 

 

GODFATHER OF HARLEM
Epix
Studio: Digital Kitchen
Creative Director: Mason Nicoll, Art Director: Peter Pak

 

 

THE MORNING SHOW
Apple TV+
Studio: Elastic
Creative Director: Angus Wall, Design Director: Hazel Baird

 

 

THE POLITICIAN
Netflix
Studio: Elastic
Creative Directors: Heidi Berg, Felix Soletic

 

 

WATCHMEN
HBO
Studio: Elastic
Creative Director: Paul Mitchell, Art Director: Olga Midlenko

 

 

WESTWORLD (Season 3)
HBO
Studio: Antibody
Creative Directors: Patrick Clair, Pinar Yanadarg Delul

 

 

 
Check back on September 12th and 13th, 2020 to find out which sequences take home a prize at the 72nd Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards. And in the meantime, be sure to read our Top 10 Title Sequences of 2019 feature to see more of the best title design work of the last year.