I saw some pretty cool film titles recently and want to show some examples where the right typeface could help communicate a message or emphasize a feeling. Let me tell you that the house that Jack built is not made from bricks because Lars von Trier is sick AF, but I guess that was expected. But hey, he can do whatever he likes! This film was memorable for me on so many levels. First, I went to the movies the day after our office Christmas Party, and I had a mild but not unbearable hangover.
I went on a date with a guy who had a 24h blood pressure monitor on, so it pumped up every half hours. Now back to the film. The story follows Jack, a serial killer over the course of 12 years. Blood and sickness level: No spoilers, but if you saw the movie, you can tell how cramming and distorting the characters into this house shape is a parallel to how he built his house. I was waiting for this movie to drop for such a long time that I could barely contain myself.
It strengthens the power of the message and complements the simple set-up perfectly. This typeface is most probably custom-made for the show, and I can only read what I think into it, but this choice resonates with the story quite well.
Just looking at the shape of D makes my mind explode. Some of the motives and characters not Zosia Mamet are meh, but I liked the Crime and Punishment thread. What I liked, even more, was the opening credits. If you only look at one youtube video today, make sure this is the one! Here comes a bad example. I believe that whatever Greta Gerwig touches turns into pure gold, and Little Women is not an exception either.
But what the actual F with this font? Not to speak about the fact that the M and N look awkward with only one tail taller. Based on stories and symbols from the Bible and The Giving Tree, this film is an allegory of climate change told by Mother Earth. Good effort to use period typography; minor mistakes here and there. Uneven use of period typography; major mistakes occasionally. Little attention to period typography; period-correct type appears only on actual period artifacts.
No attempt at historically accurate typography; only free fonts from Apple or Microsoft were used. The choices here, Newport and Brush Script , fit the period, but the style of the credits feels wrong.
In the forties, movie titles were usually hand-lettered on cards shown in sequence. Apart from the titles, careful attention is paid to get details right. They even hired veteran Hollywood costume designer Edith Head for which she won an Oscar and created sets and lighting to blend with existing footage from classic films.
The movie got a lot of praise for its attention to such details, but of course nobody mentioned the use of Blippo, a pop-art typeface from the early seventies, on the cruise brochure. The newspapers seen in several scenes are also problematic. On the other hand, the use of signs especially the hand-lettered one in the medicine cabinet is right on target.
All in all, a very funny film, but spotty in its use of type. Three of them. In any case, this is a fine film, lovingly crafted, which does a credible job of recreating the post-war forties. Although Helvetica is part of a long line of sans serifs that have been around since the late s, it was not common to see such letterforms on American signs until at least the s, especially in the generic way it is used in the movie.
Dead Again , Paramount Pictures. Kenneth Branagh and Emma Thompson play a modern-day couple who are reincarnations of an ill-fated pair, one of whom was executed for murdering the other in the late s.
The titles feature a montage of close-ups of newspaper clippings chronicling the sad tale of the earlier couple. The clippings are fairly well-done and even appear to be printed with letterpress, as most newspapers were until the s. I noticed a few oddities, of course. First, while all the typefaces used were consistent with the era, the text type in the clippings was Caledonia, a book typeface that would be a very unlikely choice for a newspaper.
Newspapers generally used and still use , well, newspaper typefaces. The other thing is that although some of the headlines appear to be set with wood type—still a common practice in the forties—they are all very nicely kerned. Technically, it was possible to kern wood type by physically cutting away parts of the type, but it would be a rather impractical practice at a newspaper. Ed Wood , Touchstone Pictures. I love this movie, but not for its use of type.
It starts out well, perfectly matching the lettering style of a real s Ed Wood movie in the opening credits, but as soon as signs and newspapers start appearing, things just go downhill.
Designed by Chris Costello and released by Letraset in , Papyrus suggests what it might be like to use a quill on Egyptian plant-like material. The letters have notches and roughness, and give a good account of a chalk or crayon fraying at the edges. The primitive letters leave the impression of writing in a hurry but there is also a consistency to the style, with E and F both carrying unusually high cross-bars. The lower case seemed to be modeled closely on the early twentieth-century American newspaper favourite Cheltenham.
The font soon became a favourite of Mediterranean-style restaurants, amusing greeting cards, and amateur productions of Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat long title—good in Papyrus Condensed , and its digital incarnation proved perfect for the desktop publishing boom of the mids. It said adventurous and exotic, and marked its user out as a would-be Indiana Jones.
Its use in Avatar was a remarkable notch up—and another example of growing typographic literacy as moviegoers scratched their heads and wondered where they had seen those titles before.
Are you out this evening to see an amateur stage version of a musical involving an animal called Pumbaa and another called Timon, with songs performed by a junior Elton John? Good luck!
More likely than not it will be in Neuland or Neuland Inline. It is a dense and angular type, suggestive of something Fred Flintstone might chisel into prehistoric rock. The inline version is bristling with energy and a quirkiness of spirit, a bad type predominantly through its overuse rather than its construction. Neuland was created in by the influential typographer Rudolf Koch, who also made Kabel, Marathon and Neufraktur.
At the time of release it was so far removed from other German types both blackletter and the emerging modernists that it was widely regarded with derision — too clumsy and inflexible. Some time later, as with Papyrus, Neuland hit the big time in the movies—with the type almost as prominent in Jurassic Park as the dinosaurs.
Both Neuland and Papyrus are classifiable as theme park fonts, more comfortable on the big rides at Universal Studios, Busch Gardens or Alton Towers than they are on the page. There are many other display types that share this dubious attribute, and the enterprising man behind a site called MickeyAvenue. The classics, too, show up in places their designers could never have envisaged. You may write to the MickeyAvenue webmaster thanking him for his sterling endeavours.
You will receive a reply thanking you for your communication written—of course—in Papyrus. As you might expect, Ransom Note consists of letters that look as if they have been hurriedly cut from magazines to form unnerving messages. The names are often better than the type—BlackMail, Entebbe, Bighouse. Precisely days before the Olympic Games were due to start, the Official London shop began selling miniature die-cast taxis in pink, blue, orange and other shades, the first of forty such models, each promoting a different sport.
The cabs are not like the lovingly crafted ones you can buy from Corgi, with opening doors and jewelled headlights, more the lumpy ones sold in Leicester Square to tourists in a hurry. Why should this matter? Because they are an example of very bad design, something London has largely begun to shun in recent years. The London Olympic Typeface, which is called Headline, may be even worse than the London Olympic Logo, but by the time it was released people were so tired of being outraged by the logo that the type almost passed by unnoticed.
The Logo was the subject of immediate parody some detected Lisa Simpson having sex , others a swastika , and even the subject of a health warning—an animated pulsing version was said to have brought on epileptic fits.
Like the logo, the uncool font is based on jaggedness and crudeness, not usually considered attributes where sport is concerned. It also has a vaguely Greek appearance, or at least the UK interpretation of Greek, the sort of lettering you will find at London kebab shops and restaurants called Dionysus. The slant to the letters is suddenly interrupted by a very round and upright o, which may be trying to be an Olympic Ring. AWS Deloitte Genpact. Events Innovation Festival. Follow us:.
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