someone needs to license more type for the movie industry. how often must we see trajan!? although, this isn't so bad. or is it trajan? the N doesn't look right.
I think it's some form of Schneidler Initials, manipulated of course. A nice digital interpretation is Shango by Jason Castle, but that has the U with the tail. I made the ID from Jaspert et al's Encyclopaedia of Type Faces, but the sample given there doesn't show the U, so it's hard to tell for sure.
From this week: Wimbledon. Hero [extended]. The Notebook. The Village.
Shawshank Redemption. Sex and the City. Donnie Darko. The Last Samurai. Titanic. Apollo 13. The Clearing. Spawn [extended]. Undertow. Mulan Special Edition. Cruel Intentions. Rounders. Van Helsing. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Chronicles of Riddick. Interview with the Vampire.
Yeah, I thought Trajan too (which is used in EVERY movie poster)
List 20 titles
Ever notice that they use the same voice for all the previews too? No imagination.
Every book/cover with the same old golden section. No imagination.
The voice for the previews/theatrical tralier: the "rule" is very simple. Clear voice, sharp voice, deep voice, no "hungry" voice (that is - you can understand & hear every word, and the person dosen't "eat" words) no slang style like - see ya, how are ya? etc etc
The same as book design. You use text typeface and not display.
So this is not about imagination. This is about how to sell.
It's sad that such a beautiful typeface has become so overused. But just as some people say "cliches are cliches because they're true" (which may itself be a cliche!) so perhaps Trajan is used simply because it's so pretty. Oh, and for the sake of completeness and because it may help, and here's a couple of threads that deals with Schneidler. Click here and here
You're right. And this is not just a cliche, but also sad.
Title design, poster etc - is done by you. Graphic deigners. Design firms, freelance designers etc.
e.g:
* The title "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights" - by Jill Bell (great artwork, and I'm sure you know her).
* Tim Girvin (Strategic Branding & Design) designed more than 400 titles - The Lord of The Ring, The Matrix, Apocalypse Now, Sleepy Hollow, Tombstone, Unforgiven.... And he's really a Great designer.
* Mike Salisbury Communications - I'm sure you know about his work. Hey, your friend, Leslie Cabarga, wrote a great book - "Logo, font & Lettering Bible" (see page 50)
Maybe there's a need to do more and more work in-house; and just to work with few designers, lettering artists, etc.
> Maybe there's a need to do more and more work in-house; and just to work with few designers, lettering artists, etc
Blame the designer??? I wouldn't exactly call Hollywood a hotbed of innovation. They keep cranking out the same movies with the same posters because they're afraid to try something different.
I just read that Jude Law is going to be in 6 movies between now and the end of the year. Now he is as beautiful a guy as Trajan is a font, but I am gonna be mighty sick of his face too in 3 months.
I've used Trajan plenty too. When you present it to a client along with a bunch of other ideas, they just love it. It is a beautiful font. But you have to know when you use it that every graphic designer is gonna look at it and go "oh, Trajan. How original."
And we still have not ID'd the font in the sample (which is not Trajan or Schneidler/Shango)
Type, your arguments don't make lots of sense and fail to impress me.
ahhhh, Shakira
I'm not here to impress. If I want to impress you- I'll reveal my name (title, company ). But there's no need for that. ethical issue. (i "know" you, or part of you. i see your marketing -promo things; i have the final word - if there's a problem or an issue - about design, type, designers, freelancers, illustrators etc etc)
Like Yves I'm getting mighty sick of your pseudo-cryptic aphorisms. If you don't have anything else to contribute why are you wasting our time? This is a forum on typography & type design, not an opportunity for some big brother rant. "I know you"?
i don't see that he's out of spirits (he dosen't need to agree with me - that's 100% right. but he's doing that with unless i'm wrong and people really sick of me......that's ok. i always can go )
Hey, Typophilics — this is an old thread, http://www.typophile.com/node/6777, but it’s funny because I just found it. I was looking for something else, and this came up. To the nature of the font, it’s not Trajan — it’s a customized Girvin titling font; surely, it’s based on 1st century epigraphy, but not on Twombly’s Trajan. Trust me, I’ve had so many of my logotype renderings converted into Trajan solutions by agencies, it’s a joke.
I’ve been working as a designer for motion picture marketing since 1978-79, and Apocalypse Now, Francis Coppola. And what happens is that you create solutions that are endlessly juried and judged by either the directors, the studio leadership, the talent, whomever is involved in the proposition — and toned down. The art fullness, diminished. So, doing a rendering of the Last Samurai, or Lord of the Rings, Gladiator — The Ghost and the Darkness — or Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, each of these treatments is entirely customized — tuned and built by hand. And if there’s an agency conversion, the customized solutions move to easily built imitation solutions by the agencies, and...the work is gone.
I started working on Lemony Snicket as a production designer for Count Olaf’s eyes — which then became part of the logo, then from there, building out the fonts and related work to create the master — for a committee and client team of 15.
Thanks Tim for bringing this post back to life. I remember reading a list in a “Print” column years ago, written by a design God of the moment. It was about things that were great and things that sucked in design. Top of his list for the sucky was “any movie poster.” That was at least 10 years ago and those unfortunate words come to mind every time I see one. And while it’s not always true (think Juno and Little Miss Sunshine for refreshing departures) I’ve tended to agree with him most of the time.
I had to double check to make sure it was actually you posting, for as I was reading the earlier entries I knew that they were talking about some of your work. What the “movie voiceover guy” (as he is actually known) is to trailers, you’ve been to movie logos. And just as others try to imitate him, you’ve created a look that the industry feels the need to bastardize and perpetuate.
I wasn’t aware of the scope of your film work and the quite successful niche you’ve created until a few years back when I came across your name and remembered you for all the fantastic hand drawn logos and type treatments that were all over the design and type annuals back in the day. That was a rare gift of beauty and wit you showed us. Would love to see more of that again. Throw away that computer.
Patrick, sweet, your comments — thanks for your generosity of spirit. I claim nothing, really. Simply that the idea of creating a logo for a film is like creating an identity for something else — except that, perhaps, it gets a little more out there. The exposures are bigger, and perhaps even in some instances, international.
But the real telling is in the telling itself. Any motion picture identity treatment is about telling the story in a kind of compressed concretion of space. The motion picture logo can be, literally, the first thing that comes into play. It’s the teaser for what’s to come. Then, finally, months, if not nearly a year later, the film logo is the last thing out, that tiny little space ad that you see. Last week!
Iron man, I’d attest, will be in play much longer.
I’d been on the typophile link, years, nay decades ago, before is was even online, I’m sure. And then somehow in the biziness of things, I drifted away to other things.
glad to be back into the heart of it.
and type surely is the heart and heat of it — it’s where the story begins, the message originates...
all the best, happy Sunday —
Tim Girvin | Strategy+Design | NYC+Seattle+Tokyo
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21.Sep.2004 1.33pm
Rafael, looks like a typeface but its been manipulated using either a 3-D program or a program like Illustrator.
21.Sep.2004 2.29pm
someone needs to license more type for the movie industry. how often must we see trajan!? although, this isn't so bad. or is it trajan? the N doesn't look right.
21.Sep.2004 2.34pm
Mwhahahahahaaaaaaaaaa... just you wait, Wardle.
21.Sep.2004 3.14pm
Yeah, I thought Trajan too (which is used in EVERY movie poster) but the N threw me.
Ever notice that they use the same voice for all the previews too? No imagination.
21.Sep.2004 5.04pm
I think it's some form of Schneidler Initials, manipulated of course. A nice digital interpretation is Shango by Jason Castle, but that has the U with the tail. I made the ID from Jaspert et al's Encyclopaedia of Type Faces, but the sample given there doesn't show the U, so it's hard to tell for sure.
21.Sep.2004 8.00pm
From this week: Wimbledon. Hero [extended]. The Notebook. The Village.
Shawshank Redemption. Sex and the City. Donnie Darko. The Last Samurai. Titanic. Apollo 13. The Clearing. Spawn [extended]. Undertow. Mulan Special Edition. Cruel Intentions. Rounders. Van Helsing. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Chronicles of Riddick. Interview with the Vampire.
Face it, it's a cliche.
21.Sep.2004 8.02pm
Yeah, I thought Trajan too (which is used in EVERY movie poster)
List 20 titles
Ever notice that they use the same voice for all the previews too? No imagination.
Every book/cover with the same old golden section. No imagination.
The voice for the previews/theatrical tralier: the "rule" is very simple. Clear voice, sharp voice, deep voice, no "hungry" voice (that is - you can understand & hear every word, and the person dosen't "eat" words)
no slang style like - see ya, how are ya? etc etc
The same as book design. You use text typeface and not display.
So this is not about imagination. This is about how to sell.
21.Sep.2004 8.02pm
Yeah, I thought Trajan too (which is used in EVERY movie poster)
I found this a couple of years ago, I'm not sure who made it.
21.Sep.2004 8.20pm
I have a list of nearly 200.
21.Sep.2004 8.27pm
It's sad that such a beautiful typeface has become so overused. But just as some people say "cliches are cliches because they're true" (which may itself be a cliche!) so perhaps Trajan is used simply because it's so pretty. Oh, and for the sake of completeness and because it may help, and here's a couple of threads that deals with Schneidler. Click here and here
21.Sep.2004 8.54pm
You forgot Wimbledon, Head in the Clouds (from today's paper) but that's only two so maybe Trajan is playing itself out.
But it's not just movie titles.
http://www.columbia.edu/
I'm sure I could come up with others if it weren't almost midnight and three glasses of wine down the hatch.
21.Sep.2004 11.17pm
Face it, it's a cliche.
You're right. And this is not just a cliche, but also sad.
Title design, poster etc - is done by you. Graphic deigners. Design firms, freelance designers etc.
e.g:
* The title "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights" - by Jill Bell (great artwork, and I'm sure you know her).
* Tim Girvin (Strategic Branding & Design) designed more than 400 titles - The Lord of The Ring, The Matrix, Apocalypse Now, Sleepy Hollow, Tombstone, Unforgiven....
And he's really a Great designer.
* Mike Salisbury Communications - I'm sure you know about his work. Hey, your friend, Leslie Cabarga, wrote a great book - "Logo, font & Lettering Bible" (see page 50)
Maybe there's a need to do more and more work in-house; and just to work with few designers, lettering artists, etc.
So thank you for this thread.
21.Sep.2004 11.44pm
Late to the party as usual.
But I think they just used Trajan for my national paper.
http://www.manic.com.sg/blog/archives/000209.php
Thought you might like to know.
No doubt the first in a series of unfortunate events.
21.Sep.2004 11.52pm
Chesh ... any status on the, ya know, thingie?
I can imagine how difficult it is to, uh, stay quiet on this
subject?
22.Sep.2004 12.01am
Oooh, is Chesh making a movie on THE movie face?
Chesh, can you post your list of 200 movies?
> a series of unfortunate events.
Also known as a Trajedy. Tee hee.
22.Sep.2004 6.37am
> Maybe there's a need to do more and more work in-house; and just to work with few designers, lettering artists, etc
Blame the designer??? I wouldn't exactly call Hollywood a hotbed of innovation. They keep cranking out the same movies with the same posters because they're afraid to try something different.
I just read that Jude Law is going to be in 6 movies between now and the end of the year. Now he is as beautiful a guy as Trajan is a font, but I am gonna be mighty sick of his face too in 3 months.
I've used Trajan plenty too. When you present it to a client along with a bunch of other ideas, they just love it. It is a beautiful font. But you have to know when you use it that every graphic designer is gonna look at it and go "oh, Trajan. How original."
And we still have not ID'd the font in the sample (which is not Trajan or Schneidler/Shango)
22.Sep.2004 5.11pm
Now he is as beautiful a guy as Trajan is a font,
As Marshall Lee said: Typefaces - like people's faces - have distinctive features indicating aspects of character.
I am gonna be mighty sick of his face too in 3 months.
don't watch.
They keep cranking out the same movies with the same posters because they're afraid to try something different.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Blame the designer???
Well. I blamed my mom and she asked me why.
(which is not Trajan or Schneidler/Shango)
I know.
22.Sep.2004 10.02pm
who ARE you?
23.Sep.2004 1.06am
Type, your arguments don't make lots of sense and fail to impress me.
23.Sep.2004 1.15am
edit: maybe Dave will post in exactly 16 minutes
and point us to the trailer.
bj
23.Sep.2004 1.31am
Something will end up here pretty soon now. In the meantime, enjoy the trailer...
23.Sep.2004 11.14pm
Type, your arguments don't make lots of sense and fail to impress me.
ahhhh, Shakira
I'm not here to impress. If I want to impress you- I'll reveal my name (title, company ). But there's no need for that. ethical issue.
(i "know" you, or part of you. i see your marketing -promo things; i have the final word - if there's a problem or an issue - about design, type, designers, freelancers, illustrators etc etc)
Anyway - what is the issue?
23.Sep.2004 11.44pm
Ethical issue? What could that possibly be? Wait, are you Dan Rather?
24.Sep.2004 8.09am
Type:
Like Yves I'm getting mighty sick of your pseudo-cryptic aphorisms. If you don't have anything else to contribute why are you wasting our time? This is a forum on typography & type design, not an opportunity for some big brother rant. "I know you"?
25.Sep.2004 3.05pm
25.Sep.2004 5.25pm
Like Yves
(he dosen't need to agree with me - that's 100% right. but he's doing that with 
unless i'm wrong and people really sick of me......that's ok. i always can go )
i don't see that he's out of spirits
3.May.2008 9.27pm
Hey, Typophilics — this is an old thread, http://www.typophile.com/node/6777, but it’s funny because I just found it. I was looking for something else, and this came up. To the nature of the font, it’s not Trajan — it’s a customized Girvin titling font; surely, it’s based on 1st century epigraphy, but not on Twombly’s Trajan. Trust me, I’ve had so many of my logotype renderings converted into Trajan solutions by agencies, it’s a joke.
I’ve been working as a designer for motion picture marketing since 1978-79, and Apocalypse Now, Francis Coppola. And what happens is that you create solutions that are endlessly juried and judged by either the directors, the studio leadership, the talent, whomever is involved in the proposition — and toned down. The art fullness, diminished. So, doing a rendering of the Last Samurai, or Lord of the Rings, Gladiator — The Ghost and the Darkness — or Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, each of these treatments is entirely customized — tuned and built by hand. And if there’s an agency conversion, the customized solutions move to easily built imitation solutions by the agencies, and...the work is gone.
More here on that: http://www.girvin.com/portfolio/identity/matrix/matrix.php, or here: http://www.girvin.com/portfolio/identity/beowulf/beowulf.php. Or this notation on process: http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/stories/2006/05/08/story8.html. I’m not touting, I’m talking. http://blog.girvin.com/?p=997, or: http://blog.girvin.com/?p=712
Nuff said, as they say in the comics.
I started working on Lemony Snicket as a production designer for Count Olaf’s eyes — which then became part of the logo, then from there, building out the fonts and related work to create the master — for a committee and client team of 15.
Rough, but done.
Reach, as you will | TSG
Tim Girvin | Seattle+NYC+Tokyo
4.May.2008 5.20am
Thanks Tim for bringing this post back to life. I remember reading a list in a “Print” column years ago, written by a design God of the moment. It was about things that were great and things that sucked in design. Top of his list for the sucky was “any movie poster.” That was at least 10 years ago and those unfortunate words come to mind every time I see one. And while it’s not always true (think Juno and Little Miss Sunshine for refreshing departures) I’ve tended to agree with him most of the time.
I had to double check to make sure it was actually you posting, for as I was reading the earlier entries I knew that they were talking about some of your work. What the “movie voiceover guy” (as he is actually known) is to trailers, you’ve been to movie logos. And just as others try to imitate him, you’ve created a look that the industry feels the need to bastardize and perpetuate.
I wasn’t aware of the scope of your film work and the quite successful niche you’ve created until a few years back when I came across your name and remembered you for all the fantastic hand drawn logos and type treatments that were all over the design and type annuals back in the day. That was a rare gift of beauty and wit you showed us. Would love to see more of that again. Throw away that computer.
cheers
Patrick
http://typographyshop.com
4.May.2008 7.26pm
Patrick, sweet, your comments — thanks for your generosity of spirit. I claim nothing, really. Simply that the idea of creating a logo for a film is like creating an identity for something else — except that, perhaps, it gets a little more out there. The exposures are bigger, and perhaps even in some instances, international.
But the real telling is in the telling itself. Any motion picture identity treatment is about telling the story in a kind of compressed concretion of space. The motion picture logo can be, literally, the first thing that comes into play. It’s the teaser for what’s to come. Then, finally, months, if not nearly a year later, the film logo is the last thing out, that tiny little space ad that you see. Last week!
Iron man, I’d attest, will be in play much longer.
More on that, later — except for now, there’s this: http://blog.girvin.com/?p=768
Thanks, Patrick — more soon.
Tim Girvin | Strategy+Design | NYC+Seattle+Tokyo
5.May.2008 12.47pm
Welcome to Typophile, Tim.
25.May.2008 7.06am
thanks, Tiffany,
coming from you, too (two), it’s nice to be here.
I’d been on the typophile link, years, nay decades ago, before is was even online, I’m sure. And then somehow in the biziness of things, I drifted away to other things.
glad to be back into the heart of it.
and type surely is the heart and heat of it — it’s where the story begins, the message originates...
all the best, happy Sunday —
Tim Girvin | Strategy+Design | NYC+Seattle+Tokyo