Typography & Lettering on TV series
What’s there beyond Stranger Things
– você pode ler este artigo em português aqui
¶ I’ve been watching more series than movies fora a while now, I’m even thinking that movies in general aren’t as deep as series for not having enough time to develop the characters. But that’s not what I’m here to write for. With Stranger Things’ premiere, the typographic community is excited with the all type opening sequence, but there are several other interesting things in series, good or bad, and that’s what I’ll focus. The idea is to point stuff, not going on deep analysis. ■
Mean while, at the ‘60s…
¶ The Batman series starred by Adam West became famous for the onomatopoeias that used to pop on screen like in the comics, you can read about them at Yves Peters’ article on Font Feed. But what I want to bring your attention to here is the comics-based opening credits’ lettering. The kind-of-wrong weight and irregular contrasts brings a non-traditional beauty. In 2012, Ryan Hughes created Kane, a typeface based on the lettering (thanks for the tip Kevin Thompson).
This is the only series that I’ll comment from before my days, but thanks to brazilian’s television reruns, I can say that I watched it. ■
The ‘90s
¶ The Nanny is a series that called my attention on the opening sequence letterings, I could not find the author, but the design is great and how the letterforms interact is awesome, you can even see colors mixed, that’s not very common on series opening sequences.
Curiously, the series had a remake in several countries with local actors and the lettering style remained. ■
¶ There’s something interesting at Friend’s final credits, where they opted for the flat pen inspired typography Lydian, by Warren Chappell, in 1938, as Eli Heuer points on the blog Fonts in Use. I don’t understand how this fits on the series context (and I watched it all a few times).
In my opinion, even Comic Sans would make more sense (controversy mode: on), but leaving the joke aside, I’m very curious about the choice.
The letterings are inspired on common handwriting for the actors names in the opening sequence, as the series logo ■
¶ The X Files’ (1993–2006 with a new season promised to 2017) iconic opening sequence used Erik van Blokland’s FF Trixie, (1991) on the big X and Neville Brody’s Industria (1989) for The X-Files text, as Stephen Coles says on the Fonts in Use blog. FF Trixie is a high resolution writing machine printing inspired type (curious fact is that after OpenType improving Erik launched a new version with higher resolution, called FF Trixie HD). For the actor’s credits was used the traditional and neutral Helvetica (1959), something to report is that the kerning is disabled — that’s something frequently noticed, maybe the video editing softwares didn’t read such font’s information. ■
¶ When Steven Spieberg’s Freakazoid! (1995–1997) premiered on TV, it was something unique (maybe there was a relation with the contemporary series The Mask, but was not quite there), a super-hero completely crazy, that was there just for the fun and lived bizarre adventures had interesting lettering on the opening. While the soundtrack was going on, Freakazoid! Freakazoid! was said by a chorus. And every time the did that, a new lettering shows up. ■
¶ Strange fact that in That ’70s Show (1998–2006) the logo uses a 1904 typography, the Arnold Boecklin, designed by Otto Weisert. The font clearly has Art Noveau influences, and that was a thing on the 70’s, but in my opinion, a psychodelic lettering would make more sense, considering the episodes environment and it’s “circles”. For the credits Hobo, from Morris Fuller Benton (1910) was used, making sense with Arnold Boecklin on the logo. This is one of my favorite series from all times, leaving aside the weak last season [!!!!!!!!!!spoiler alert!!!!!!!!!!], when Kelso (Ashton Kutcher) and Eric (Topher Grace) leave the show. ■
The 2000’s…
¶ Dexter (2006–2013) won 2007’s Emmy and its for sure incredible. Without big typographic revolutions but truly well made (as all the series), I didn’t want to leave it out of this list. They use DIN 1451 (1913) by Ludwig Groller e Adolf Gropp, as Stephen Coles says on Fonts in Use. Very well used, the font it’s discreet but works in perfect synchrony with the soundtrack and frames.■
¶ I can say that House M.D. (2004–2012) is on my top 10 list. At the opening there’s a simple well made blur use of Century Gothic, originally from the 90’s. The fact of the letters have open tracking (manually more spaced) helps the reading, but at the same time the kerning was lost. ■
The 2010’s…
¶ At American Horror Story (2011–) opening there’s an interesting typography choice for the logo and credits. The Rennie Mackintosh, from George R. Grant (2013) was based on Charles Rennie Mackintsoh letters created for the Glasgow School of Art. Inaugurated in 1909, the school was built in Glasgow, Scotland. The top video show how the opening changes from season to season, but the typography remains. On the fifth season there’s an interesting interpretation like if it was a neon sign.
The Rennie Mackintosh from George R. Grant is not the first typography inspired by Glasgow letters, the ITC Rennie Mackintosh, from Phill Grimshaw, was already crafted in 1996, despite the same font name, the designers have no connections. ■
¶ In The Walking Dead (2010–) we can se the use of a recently created typeface, Tungsten was made in 2009 by Jonathan Hoefler & Tobias Frere-Jones. It’s a large family with four different widths (all condensed), works very well for impact titles, works perfectly with the series. ■
I end this text with a classic and well made lettering from Merrie Melodies, produced by Warner Bros. from 1931 to 1969.
