Wes Anderson’s Futura
I recently saw The Darjeeling Limited, Wes Anderson’s new film. I’m a big Wes Anderson fan, from both a film and graphic design perspective. From his unique cinematic “dollhouse” style to working with the same cast and crew, he has a way of visually branding his films so the are unmistakably his. Typographically, he uses Futura (and altered versions of Futura) as his house font. Though it’s not as omnipresent in Darjeeling as it has been in many of his past films (Rushmore, The Royal Tennenbaums, The Life Acquatic), it does appear on some key elements such as the luggage insignia and many of the train amenitites. The Futura montage above is from a combination of his films.
Unlike the ubiquitous and easily adaptable Helvetica, Futura can often be challenging to use. It was one of the first sans-serif fonts developed, and it was a radical departure from typography’s past. Developed by Paul Renner in 1928, Futura was a study in geometry. The characters are based on perfectly proportioned squares, triangles and circles, and the stroke is almost perfectly even throughout. These geometric shapes, however, coupled with exaggerated ascenders and descenders often create awkward spaces and can be problematic from a readability standpoint.
As a display typeface, though, Futura evokes the modern and often goofy spirit of the ’60s. It seems the perfect companion to the endearing characters in Anderson’s films who take themselves a tad too seriously. The idiosyncrasies that the typeface makes when the nearly perfect characters combine to form words and sentences somehow matches that of the characters and experience of a Wes Anderson film. Simultaneously perfect and imperfect.
I love when directors find a “voice” through a certain font. Woody Allen has used the same font (Windsor set in white on a black background with dixieland jazz as the music), in just about every film he’s ever made.
By: Marc on October 15, 2007 at 9:13 am
Wes does have an instantly recognizable style, thanks in part to Futura. I love his movies too, but with his high-profile image I feel like Futura is ruined now! If I use it it feels like a rip-off.
New term for the 21st century: font-biter.
By: Matt on October 16, 2007 at 10:12 am
Hey Matt,
Font-biter… I love it. I totally know what you mean, though. In fact, I have a hard time using Futura now without it feeling toungue-in-cheek.
If it’s any consolation, Wes is a bit of a font-biter himself. Stanley Kubrick is the Futura-Film originator.
By: ellen on October 16, 2007 at 10:52 am
Ah, yes, Futura –I used it a lot in designing work at CBS television in those goofy 60’s days. My tastes leaned toward Fut Bold & Extra Bold Cond. Which were perfect for movie ads and news programing–so it seemed then. It won a lot of type and art directors awards for us in any case.
These days I’m more into goofy types such as the main title corny gravestones in the New DVD print of “Ed Wood ” which I watched last night.
If you all want a pre- Halloween treat –see more of these madcape type and ghoul faces on the website—monsterstv.com. A riot, at least to these eyes.
We have recently gotten this channel on our HDTV and all of this stations graphics are extremely witty and with it for the retro horror movies they show all “day and all nightmare”as they say.
By: Herb on October 17, 2007 at 4:57 pm
[...] have called Futura “theirs” (including Volkswagen, Absolut Vodka… even filmmaker Wes Anderson calls Futura his), there was something particulary fitting about Ikea and [...]
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