Typecasting: The Use and Misuse of Period Typography in Movies (2001)
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Re: Typecasting: The Use and Misuse of Period Typography in Movies (2001)
#2The typographer Matthew Butterick was so bothered by the use of Verdana in “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol” that he wrote a letter to Brad Bird, the film’s director.
Re: Typecasting: The Use and Misuse of Period Typography in Movies (2001)
#3One thing I noticed:
People are starting to forget what old computer screens looked like. It could be because there's a shortage of actual, functional CRT monitors. But these days when an old computer is called for you are likely to see perfectly smooth, green text in Consolas or similar composited onto a prop screen, rather than actual glowing pixels. It's jarring and saddening, and it's happened in two films that I've seen so far: John Wick Chapter 2 (wherein VIC-20s stood in for the old computer keyboards) and Kong: Skull Island.
Re: Typecasting: The Use and Misuse of Period Typography in Movies (2001)
#4In a similar vein, in 50 years, they will be making movies set in the 80s and everyone will be walking around with iPhones.
Re: Typecasting: The Use and Misuse of Period Typography in Movies (2001)
#5I really admire the author for being able to identify so many types with just a few letterforms. I've had a passing interest in types so I can identify basic Microsoft/Apple free fonts as well as a few common Adobe ones like Minion Pro and Myriad Pro. I think I can identify perhaps at most thirty different typefaces. Anyone wants to chime in on how you are able to be familiar with so many more?
Re: Typecasting: The Use and Misuse of Period Typography in Movies (2001)
#6So I collect telephones.
I'll often catch stuff like this when watching period-set movies or TV shows.
Mad Men deserves credit though - in six years they made one mistake - they had a set with a modular plug in it at Don's house (and it wasn't even a modular plug, it was an insert that could be replaced with a modular one on a G-Type handset).
Re: Typecasting: The Use and Misuse of Period Typography in Movies (2001)
#7I really admire the author for being able to identify so many types with just a few letterforms. I've had a passing interest in types so I can identify basic Microsoft/Apple free fonts as well as a few common Adobe ones like Minion Pro and Myriad Pro. I think I can identify perhaps at most thirty different typefaces. Anyone wants to chime in on how you are able to be familiar with so many more?
The author is a professional type designer and created some well known fonts - including Proxima Nova and Anonymous Pro. For someone that has spent much of his life looking at and thinking about typefaces, I imagine it's trivial for him to accurately identify hundreds of varieties.
I recommend "The Elements of Typographic Style" by Robert Bringhurst if you'd like to improve your type identification abilities. The appendices have a good, but by no means exhaustive, reference of some of the better known typefaces.
Re: Typecasting: The Use and Misuse of Period Typography in Movies (2001)
#8So I collect telephones. I'll often catch stuff like this when watching period-set movies or TV shows. Mad Men deserves credit though - in six years they made one mistake - they had a set with a modular plug in it at Don's house (and it wasn't even a modular plug, it was an insert that could be replaced with a modular one on a G-Type handset).
I think that they also had Joan say "the medium is the message" about a decade before McLuhan thought it up, but I could be mistaken.
Re: Typecasting: The Use and Misuse of Period Typography in Movies (2001)
#9Ah, so this article looks at anachronistic use of typography in movies set in the past. In the other direction is:
Re: Typecasting: The Use and Misuse of Period Typography in Movies (2001)
#10The typographer Matthew Butterick was so bothered by the use of Verdana in “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol” that he wrote a letter to Brad Bird, the film’s director. PDF: http://mbtype.com/pdf/bird-verdana.pdf
Did he ever get a reply?