[Tex/LaTex] beamer: separate page title, subtitle, author, date fonts

Question

I am using the beamer document class and I’d like to have a separate font style for page title, subtitle, author and date.

My solution does not work and the font of the title gets applied to all elements. More specifically, the series=X is not applied to the different elements while the size still works.

Contents of beameroutertheme.sty

\setbeamerfont{title}{size=\Large,series=\bfseries}
\setbeamerfont{subtitle}{size=\small,series=\itshape}
\setbeamerfont{author}{size=\small,series=\mdseries}
\setbeamerfont{date}{size=\small,series=\mdseries}

\defbeamertemplate*{title page}{sebslidestheme}[1][]
{
  \centering
  \usebeamerfont{title}\usebeamercolor[fg]{title}\inserttitle\par
  \usebeamerfont{subtitle}\usebeamercolor[fg]{subtitle\insertsubtitle\par
  \bigskip\bigskip
  \usebeamerfont{author}\insertauthor\par
  \usebeamerfont{date}\insertdate\par
}

Can someone please point out the problem?

Answer 1

Normally the subtitle inherits some properties from the title. In this case the font was changed to be bold and italic at the same time. But you can simply give the subtitle a different parent:

\documentclass{beamer}

\setbeamerfont{title}{size=\Large,series=\bfseries}
\setbeamerfont{subtitle}{parent={normal text}, size=\small,shape=\itshape}
\setbeamerfont{author}{size=\small,series=\mdseries}
\setbeamerfont{date}{size=\small,series=\mdseries}

\defbeamertemplate*{title page}{sebslidestheme}
{
  \centering
  {\usebeamerfont{title}\usebeamercolor[fg]{title}\inserttitle}\par
  {\usebeamerfont{subtitle}\usebeamercolor[fg]{subtitle}\insertsubtitle}\par
  \bigskip\bigskip
  {\usebeamerfont{author}\insertauthor}\par
  {\usebeamerfont{date}\insertdate}\par
}

\title{The Title}
\subtitle{The Subtitle}
\author{The Author}

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
\maketitle
\end{frame}

\end{document}