Dave Addey - Typeset in the Future: Typography and Design in Science Fiction Movies

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FUTURE

TYPESET IN THE

FUTURE

TYPESET IN THE

TYPOGRAPHY AND DESIGN

IN SCIENCE FICTION MOVIES

ABRAMS, NEW YORK

DAVE ADDEY

FOREWORD BY

MATT ZOLLER SEITZ

Alien

s opening sequence introduces us to the Nostromo s hypersleep pods,

which can be found in the ships cryogenic vault. We know that they are in the

ships cryogenic vault because of the inverted-blue-triangle-and-flat-red-person

icon in the bottom center of this shot, which is clearly labeled CRYOGENIC

VAULT in concept designer Ron Cobbs production sketches. This icon

combines blue (lowered thermal condition) with red (viable, sound, alive,

alertness) as part of Cobbs Semiotic Standard of iconography and color

identification seen throughout the Nostromo s interior. (Well study Cobbs

semiotic standard in more detail on .)

CONTENTS

TYPESET IN THE FUTURE

Dave Addey made me miss a deadline.

It was a few years ago. I was trying to finish a rewrite of a long piece for

New York

magazine

that had to go to press the next day. I dont remember how it happenedprobably as the result

of a movie discussion on social mediabut I found myself googling the words

Futura

and

science

fiction films

and somehow ended up on Typeset in the Future, the website that would ultimately

become this book.

And it was there that I encountered the best of all possible discoveries: a thing so special and

enthralling that I briefly wondered if it really existed or if I was dreaming it.

Typeset in the Future was an entire website about the use of fonts to put across the idea of

the future in science fiction movies. That was its primary focus, and it was immediately clear

that Addey was approaching his core mission with monk-like devotion. Starting with Stanley

Kubricks

2001: A Space Odyssey

, he pored over several classic science fiction films, freeze-

framing compositions and zooming in on details, sometimes tilting or flipping the image to give

us a better look at it. He looked at titles and subtitles, signage and manuals, computer screens

and television chyrons, and scrutinized words and sentences, paragraphs and punctuation. He

analyzed the spacing, the kerning, the serifs or lack thereof. He noticed where the filmmakers

seemingly inserted one letter from a different typeface into a word that was otherwise uniform.

It was the damnedest display of hyper-specific expertise that Id seen in a long time.

I looked at the clock four hours later and realized Id missed my deadline. I had to make up

an excuse, because I was up all night reading about fonts doesnt usually cut it with editors.

I regret nothing. The word

fanatic

doesnt do justice to the experience of reading Addey on

fonts. Its like reading Molly Haskell on screwball comedies or Roger Angell on baseball.

Its also like being in a class taught by the sort of professor that you instantly know youre

going to think back on fondly for the rest of your days. Its clear that Addey knows as much

about the particulars as any working designer, and that he also has that great teachers ability

to explain all he knows to somebody who knows very little, with concision, nuance, and lots of

little jokes, many of them endearingly corny. (Good news! announces the opening of the second

chapter. While you were reading about

2001: A Space Odyssey

, a typographic study of

Alien

was

gestating for your enjoyment.)

Another thing that distinguishes a great teacher is the ability to jump from the subject youre

ostensibly studying to an adjacent subject and back again, without damaging the flow of the

discussion. Addey is a master at that. You can see his skill put to fine use as you turn the pages

of this book. Every page of

Typeset in the Future

is meant to be looked at as well as read, and the

images and text are always working in tandem to express an idea. Much of the book is specifically

focused on typefaces used within a given science fiction property (

2001

, the

Alien

franchise,

Blade Runner

,

Moon

, the various iterations of

Star Trek

), but on every other page youll find

Addey expanding his vision to accommodate the historical time period, social customs, and design

clichs that a given film either echoed or pushed against. And, woven throughout the layout,

youll find examples of whatever hes discussing, reproduced in enough detail to be savored as

objects and described in pithy two-line summaries or in clever captions.

FOREWORD

FOREWORD

This is a book so tightly focused that it can spend several pages discussing variants of Hori-

zon, a font specifically created for use on the original

Star Trek

, or Pump Demi, a font often used

in subtitles of alien languages; yet playful and loose enough to conduct lengthy interviews with

important production designers like Mike Okuda and detour into discussions of the narrative

function of dry on-screen factoids (such as the opening description of the

Alien

ore vessel

Nos-

tromo

, which Addey describes as foreshadowing inventory), or the way science fiction film-

makers continue to put jagged-edge, pulsing scan lines on TV screens to signal that were looking

at a TV, even though televisions havent done that since the turn of the millennium.

Treating

2001

as a cinematic big bang that advanced the arts of both motion-picture story-

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