Seeing as The Big Sleep has themes in common with Film Noir, as well as a film adaption that fits very well into the genre, I thought I'd look at some Film Noir title cards for inspiration with my typographic choices.
The natural place for me to start would be the 2 title cards I managed to find for the film version of the book. Both have typefaces very typical of the era (serif with shadowing) but seem to feel very dated and fixed to that period, leaving its use for a current book cover very limited.
One thing I have noted from the title cards is the use of quotation marks around the title of the film. This is common of the period and something I might consider working into my design.
