Note the text on the top right, it aint cussing Futura

The love of type and typography is a conversation often lost on most of the wider public. The nerdy lengths that type lovers go to sate their hunger for these curious graphic forms is legendary. Just ask Amanda Roach how she got an enormous lower case ‘a’ and ‘m’ in her studio. Amanda will attest that – Andrew (Ashton) graciously offered them to her. The other version involves a bicycle accident, some cold chicken, a bar in North Melbourne, a song by Joy Division and a random text message.

There are few outside the world of type, who understand the beauty of good type, and when a random type lover (from outside the world of type) exhibits their insights to broad audience – type nerds across the world sleep tight, or chung down an extra Red Bull and spend another week tweaking type character forms, or kerning pairs.

Wes Anderson, the acclaimed film director, is one such person who has put type on the big screen for all to love and hate. Anyone familiar with his films will acknowledge that type is one of the acting cast – type’s 26 characters perform for Anderson like the late great John Cazale with verve, stealth, wit and intuition. Films such as ‘Bottle Rocket’, ‘Rushmore’, ‘The Royal Tenenbaums’, ‘The Life Acquatic…’, ‘The Darjeeling Limited’ and most recently ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’ all feature fine type usage and typography.

Anderson’s type treatment is one of the markers that denote his film making style. Anderson’s type treatment compliments the broad cinematic experience adding unique detail and curiosity. All type treatments across his productions be it: film titles and credits, film props including location signing, vehicle livery, luggage, book jackets, uniforms, crests, stationery – are designed and finished with a spare, considered and functional type design aesthetic. The look is bold and uncomplicated, American, post World War II, hot metal print – a style of type treatment which dominated printed matter around the world for several decades (from the 1940 to 1970s), as much of the everyday printer matter was developed for clients by printers (with their functional approach to type treatment) rather than by designers or commercial artists.

Before we launch into the type related questions, it is a given in our very bias opinion that Wes Anderson’s latest film, an adaption of Roald Dahl children’s novel ‘Fantastic Mr Fox’ is a must see. Anderson’s latest output explores different audiences – the general audience (Children to Adults), and new techniques – adapting an acclaimed children’s book to film and using stop-motion animation. Like film director Spike Jonze’s recent adaptation of ‘Where the Wild Things are’ by Maurice Sendak (another must see) these forty something film makers use their spirited, witty, quirky yet humble style of film making and story telling to set a standard in General audience films. The overall effect of the film is a hands-on outcome, not overwhelmed by effects and technology, allowing the story and style of film making to evolve into a unique and captivating experience. Anderson and Jonze  seem to respect the audience’s intelligence and ability to comprehend concepts. As a result their work lacks the dumbing down of the content by research and rampant merchandising often found in films in the General audience genre. The emphasis is therefore about making an inspired film, connecting with the film goer and allowing everything else to fall into place.

So with the fluffy stuff out of the way, let’s explore up the type questions.

Q / 01

The big question for type nerds :

How do you feel about the outing of Futura Bold and the inning of Helvetica Bold as the main font used in Fantastic Mr Fox?

Goodbye by Paul Renner and hello Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann. Farewell Germany, welcome Switerland. Best wishes quirky geometric, make yourself comfortable functional and flexible.

Marketing materials, this aint cussing Helvetica

Q / 02

Another type question for the marketers of the film :

Why have the posters and advertising material used Futura, when the film has cast Helvetica as it main font?

Q / 03

Another really nerdy question for the marketers of the film :

Why has the marketing title text, the film’s brand if you will, been set of a curved baseline, when the type in the film is constantly set on a straight baseline?

It doesn’t match Anderson’s signature of being attentive to the minor details. Maybe the sales guys thought that the audience would not notice, nor be able to tell the difference.

See the film at least twice never-the-less, the whole package is a rare delight.

Let us know your type thoughts. There are not many samples of the main type at work in the film displayed on the net, to make our Helvetica point. Be assured we will be back in the cinema to capture a few samples this week for posting and review.