Stranger Things and the Typography of 1983

July 22, 2016

Netflix's "Stranger Things" is the latest binge-hole into which I lovingly poured my free time this weekend past. It's a wall-to-wall homage to 80s horror/sci-fi films and the work of Steven Spielberg, John Carpenter, Stephen King, Guillermo del Toro and the list goes on. The show drips with literal ooze and the figurative kind found in easter eggs and constant references to other 80s material that actually enhance the show, rather than ruin it. I'm not making a list, but I've seen references to The Evil Dead, The Thing, Star Wars, Cujo, Firestarter, The Dark Crystal, Alien, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and I'm sure TONS more.

The poster for Netflix's "Stranger Things"

I had no clue this show was even a thing until I saw a billboard for it about a week ago. The poster has a pitch perfect title treatment that immediately puts you in a dated fantasy world. The type here echoes the covers of the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books as well as the covers of many Stephen King books.

The tightness of the spacing is reminiscent of 80s type trends and I was happy to see they carried this look and feel through to the actual show's opening credits. Here are a few screencaps from the show illustrating how the type slides over itself and into place, reminding me a lot of another set of credits to a perfect 80s film, The Terminator (skip to 1:14 for the titles).

The type is ITC Benguiat (1977) and ITC Avant Garde Gothic (1970–1977) and they look pretty great here. There have been several modifications to the ITC Benguiat to make the tracking so tight: the bowl of the uppercase G has been cut away and the serif at the top of the uppercase S has been modified. Most notably, though, is the fact that small caps were not designed for ITC Benguiat, so the larger S and R are custom-scaled, as is the uppercase T, which extends slightly higher than the rest of the letters in "THINGS."

Either way tremendous job by whomever did the design and direction — sounds like the creators of the show had a heavy hand in it. The best part about a piece like this is that any small irregularities (like the fact that "THINGS" is slightly left of center and the spacing is a bit wonky) can be chalked up to the fact that it's supposed to feel like an imperfect piece of work. In an age before Adobe and in a format that could never provide ample time for dissection, why not make the analog aspects sing?

(No notes on the ITC Avant Garde, really, except that it's nice to see a designer not lose their mind and go totally overboard with the optional ligatures.)

ITC Avant Garde Gothic type specimen from MyFonts.com

Now, I decided to write about this show and the typography within for two reasons: first, as you can see above, the opening sequence alone made me feel like a kid again. Full disclosure, I was born in 1978 and grew up watching all of the things referenced in this show. No, none of my Star Wars action figures survived my youth.

The other reason for writing this is that I apparently now have enough experience working with type to say to my wife, "That's not from 1983. That's Avenir, which was designed by Adrian Frutiger in 1988." To which she rightfully responded, "Dork." As I kept watching, I noticed enough of these very deliberate shots of type to explain who/what/where aspects of the show and wondered if they'd all turn out to be anachronisms.

Avenir is the French word for "Future." There is no word for that uppercase P.

The side of the police chief's truck was the first typographic misfit that caught my eye. HAWKINS and DEPT. are set in Avenir Medium, while POLICE is set in Avenir Black. It took a minute to ID the word POLICE, though, since the P and O seem to have been edited a bit. The center bar of the P seems to have been raised slightly, while the O seems to have been stretched horizontally. Again, this could be the work of a detailed designer replicating the methods of the 1983 type application on the door of a car. Then again, why use a typeface from 1988 when your show takes place 5 years earlier? Additionally, and this is REAL nitpicking folks, don't you think that in reality it would take even longer than 5 years for a brand new typeface to reach the side of a small-town police chief's car? I'm just asking questions.

Hey y'all — Lost Type Co-op in the house! Even more distinct than Avenir is Chandler Van De Water's Cubano, a typeface "defined by its rounded corners, wide strokes, and semi-condensed letterforms." As best I can tell Cubano was released in 2011, making it the 100% freshest component of Benny's Burgers. (I'm not sure what font "Benny's" is set in — feel free to comment if you know!)

Nothing to see here. I mean there's bodies in side, but other than that...

Rockwell, designed in 1934. Feels right to have this on the county coroner's office. I'll allow it.

I've never been more frustrated by a police station than when trying to identify it's signage font. I've got a few potential candidates, though none seems totally correct; they are Gothic RR Medium Condensed (1999), Corpus Gothic Regular (1998), and Red Top (2012). Here's another shot:

Let's move on.

"HAWKINS" here is set in Kimberley Black, one of 7 weights available from Typodermic Fonts. Their site says they released the typeface in 2000.

Kimberley type specimen from MyFonts.com

"POWER AND LIGHT" is good old Helvetica. I don't think I need to say anything about Helvetica, other than it was around prior to 1983.

Gotham, designed by Tobias Frere-Jones in 2000.

Didn't catch this image until I showed the trailer for the show to someone at work. Thought it would be a simple ID since it's so similar to the Avenir "HAWKINS" that shows up all over the cop cars. This time it's actually Gotham (check out the arm and leg of the uppercase K), a geometric sans-serif based on building lettering around Manhattan, "especially the sign on the Eighth Avenue façade of the Port Authority Bus Terminal."

"You know I only date guys with yellow Trapper Keepers that have blue type on them, right?"

Not really fair here since it's an actual product from the 80s, but thought I'd include it anyway since it rules. The Trapper Keeper logo is set in Motter Tektura, a typeface designed by Othmar Motter in 1975 and never released digitally. Here's a nice piece on Tektura.

After identifying most of the type used in the show (DAMN YOU, POLICE SIGN!), the real question here is, do I enjoy the show any less after going through this exercise? With all the articles pointing out how detailed this show is and how many references it got right, my first impulse is to point out that the designers were a bit lazy when it came to selecting era-appropriate type. I mean, the big important title sequence was so on point, why get lazy when it came to a burger sign?

On the other hand, maybe all the pre-1983 type they could have used would have looked bad on camera? While Cubano (2011) seems outrageously weird to put in a 1983 show and sticks out like a sore thumb, Kimberley (2000) is really awesome and fits that sort of IBM/gov't conspiracy look quite well.

For me, understanding and analyzing only enhances and this show is a great enjoyment.

Designing a Poster - Process Step Four

January 27, 2016

I finally(!) got a copy of the printed poster last week while another copy has been sent to Colby Sawyer for the upcoming exhibition "unassigned: independent works by designers." The exhibition opens later this week and I'm hoping to see photographs once it's hung.

Now on to the nerd stuff. As I mentioned in my previous post, I found some weirdness going on in the title cards of the actual film while I was setting the type on my poster. For reference, I used a screenshot of the title as it appears in the film:

As you can see, this is not Futura Bold—easily a favorite if not the favorite font of Kubrick's—but rather Gill Sans Light. Futura Bold was used extensively both in official posters as well as on sets and props within the film itself. A superb catalog of the type used in 2001 (and several other sci-fi films) can be found over at Dave Addey's Typeset In The Future.

I really like the elegance of Gill Sans in this title card and wanted to get similar result for my poster. I always like to see how other people design and so I decided to set my title on top of the actual one from the film. Addey notes:

“This title card is set in Gill Sans, one of the all-time classic sans-serif fonts. Perhaps surprisingly, the zeroes in ‘2001’ appear to be set with the Gill Sans capital letter O (shown on the left), rather than its zero character (shown on the right):
”

— Dave Addey, Typeset In The Future

Luckily I'd read Addey's blog entry long before starting this project and was well aware of this unique issue. However, even knowing that didn't prepare me for other surprises, namely that I couldn't find an "O" or "2" identical to the ones used in the title card.

After much research, I discovered that this was a typical case of a font being redrawn and rereleased so many times that it almost drifts from the original. I suppose you could categorize this as the evolution of type design, but there also have to be cases where the redrawing is itself unnecessary or redundant. How many iterations of a typeface are needed and is there any benefit to using the original over the latest and greatest? Is there any point in being a purist? If I was a purist, wouldn't I go find a printing press and set actual metal type by hand?

Recently, Monotype released the Eric Gill Series, which includes Gill Sans Nova (an expansion of 18 to 43 fonts), Gill Display, Joanna Sans, and Joanna Sans Nova. The release helps to bring Gill's work into the 21st century, modernizing the typeface in a way that's not been done yet. You can read more about the Eric Gill Series' development here.

In the end I used Gill Sans MT (Monotype), which is distributed with iOS and Mac OS X and with some Microsoft software. I chose it primarily because of the price (free). I am a proponent of purchasing fonts and try as hard as possible to avoid stealing the hard work of others. After designing a letter a day for the past month, I can tell you that it's a real beast of a project. That said, it may be time to add this family to the, ahem, family.

Intermission - Pt. 2

January 21, 2016

My daily lettering project rolls on. I'll post all these as a single collection once they're completed.

Designing a Poster - Process Step One

November 3, 2015

Recently I was contacted by an old high school friend to design something (anything!) for an upcoming exhibition at Colby-Sawyer College in New London, New Hampshire. The exhibit will showcase independent (non-client) work by designers from all over the country, essentially explaining visually to the Colby-Sawyer community what exactly a designer does. I was really happy to be invited to such an exhibition because it's a great excuse to get some long-overdue personal work done.

What to do?
As I suspect is the case with many designers, I've had a project milling about in the recesses of my mind for the past couple years and had never really had cause to put it out there. I'm a big fan of the films of Stanley Kubrick and have long-wanted to design a poster for his epic film, "2001: A Space Odyssey." The film has many, many different readings—Kubrick was no slouch when it came to delving deep into the human psyche. One theme that's always resonated with me is mankind's place in the universe, how far we've evolved, how far we have to go, and the potential existential crises that arise for both the characters in the film and for the audience.

For me, one of the most powerful moments from the film (and the book) comes when Dave Bowman must deactivate (kill) the murderous AI system HAL 9000. As Dave systematically unplugs HAL's circuitry, HAL gradually reverts to his earliest formatting and begins singing "Daisy Bell (Bicycle Built for Two)." HAL's ability to sing the song degrades from normal singing voice to a bass murmur that can't even be described as language. It's haunting and terrifying to hear—Dave will soon be alone on a ship that will never return to Earth, his only companion removed from existence by his own hand.

Pulling Reference
There are a LOT of fan posters out there and it's been really fun and interesting to review them for inspiration. However, most of these deal with the entire film; that is, the imagery is selling me (the viewer) on the grand scale of the film and what I would deem fairly shallow connections between primitive man, modern man, and future man. Here's a tiny sample of what I pulled for my mood board:

*Various fan posters for 2001: A Space Odyssey.*

For me it's also just as important to look at posters and images from the original film as well. A recurring component to the images is a grid-like light effect. HAL and the ship's operating system is essentially giant set of disks that can be removed and inserted depending on need. All of them appear to light up, creating some dramatic effects in the room and also on Dave's helmet:

(L-R) The Server Room, official film poster, and Dave and HAL 9000. — *(L-R) The Server Room, official film poster, and Dave and HAL 9000.*

Sketching
Before I start sketching I tend to write out a few words that I want to include either in type itself or in the meaning of what I'm designing. Since there are a million posters for 2001 and the film has been around since 1968, I'm not overly concerned with describing the whole of the film in one image. As you can see above, Dave Bowman's shock and awe seems to convey even the best designer's inability to do that effectively.

I've decided that I want the viewer to feel what I feel every time I watch Dave disconnect a singing HAL: anxiety, uneasiness, tension, depth, existential dread, solitude, the unknowable vastness of space, abandonment, awe, loss of mental faculty. Those are the words I wrote while thinking about what I want to convey, and I'll of course add and remove some as I go and more ideas come to me.

A Word About Geometry & Emotion
Kubrick's fascination/obsession with geometry, symmetry, and one-point perspective camera shots has been well documented. In the example images above it seems hardly accidental that so many of the designers made choices that reflected and complemented Kubrick's vision.

Many critics have also observed that Kubrick's films are fairly detached from their characters; that he often favors a detached storytelling style that works on a grander scale than one in which a characters' innermost feelings and motivations are clear and relatable.