ampersandology: film. culture. words.

Friday, October 9, 2009

If there really is a cult of letters, I want to be treasurer.





by Jillian Leigh, Ampersandology


The first time I saw the poster for the Spike Jonze/Dave Eggers collaboration on my childhood, it haunted me. 





Not because I was excited for the film. I mean, I AM (I've already read the weird pseudo short story that Eggers published in The New Yorker AND internalized the trailer). But what really poked at my cerebellum every time I saw this poster was something far more disturbing: what was that FONT? And where had I seen it before? 


A little cursory investigation told me that the font is handdrawn (and also gave me a new hero!) and in any case resembled Mrs. Strange, on the offchance I someday want to recreate without getting a degree in being awesome and good at handdrawn fonts (I hear the application process is ridiculous). The above article is FULL of this delightful insider knowledge, SUCH AS!: 
At Mojo, we recently worked on a custom typeface for the Warner Bros. movie Where The Wild Things Are. It was meant to look like the writing of the lead child actor, and the studio responded very positively to the lettering of Erik Buckham, one of our art directors. So he drew up a bunch of the characters, I digitized them, and built it all in FontLab.
Oh, the effort glows from the result: I am warmed with memories of my own big-print salad days, and must admire the discrete perfection in such hand-lettering. Solution in hand, still, I was not satisfied. DAMN MY INSATIABLE CURIOSITY. You see, I still couldn't remember what it intitally reminded me of, a mystery that warranted mentioning every time I visited the movie theater (without fail, my dear boyfriend would probably add). Then, it dawned on me. 


It was in front of my face the whole time, mocking me from my movie shelf, like the callow, cold-hearted companion it is: 













Kubrick, you've won yet another round in our lifelong battle of wits. MYSTERY = SOLVED. Cred = salvaged. Now, back to not obsessing about random fonts ahem, lunch. 


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