At the 1996 ATypI meeting in Den Haag, one of the speakers coined the term “sterotypography” to refer to certain cliches that get used in type usage. Another case of this is the use of Neuland and Neuland Inline to represent Africa, and of course the assortment of faux Chinese fonts that were ubiquitous on Chinese takeout menus in the 80s and 90s (and probably still are, but are there still takeout menus in the era of Grubhub?).
benj111 23 hours ago [-]
We use this sort of short hand all the time.
There's "ye olde" in a gothic font.
Walk into a super market, every product is giving you non textual clues as to what it is, and why it's different from the identical thing right next to it.
You notice the odd ones out because you have to stop and work out what the thing is.
Edit. An example is spreadable 'butter', in the UK and Europe you can't say it's butter, it doesn't say it's butter, but I bet most people have never noticed that because it's in butter type packaging with the design language you'd expect.
socalgal2 1 days ago [-]
Does the Back To The Future logo really count? Raiders of the Lost Ark as a very similar style but does not evoke "future". Yes, there are subtle differences. My point is, if you divorced them from the connection to their content I think it would be hard to point to one as "future" and the other as "not future"
canes123456 18 hours ago [-]
The typeface could not be more different between the two. One is a sans serif font with many of the factors the author called out. The other calls back to hand illustration and comics IMO.
What is the same is the color scheme and gradient. This likely is more about what was in style at the time for movie posters. You can also justify this is representive of the past part of back to the future.
Great read otherwise, I know the author mentions their book, I do wonder if he covers the history of how these fonts came to be so standard... for future stuff
JK-Swizzle 1 days ago [-]
As someone who has read the book, it does go through the history and inspiration of modern sci-fi typeset. Great coffee table book. Mainly expands on the articles on the website with more details and graphics.
giancarlostoro 1 days ago [-]
Might have to snag it, and like you say, keep it laying around as a coffee table book somewhere. :)
bit_savager 1 days ago [-]
"Somewhere"
giancarlostoro 19 hours ago [-]
Probably my bookshelf lol
nedt 19 hours ago [-]
But Star Wars isn't from the future. Does that mean there is a time loop in fonts?
pavel_lishin 14 hours ago [-]
"This has happened before and it will happen again."
genghisjahn 1 days ago [-]
And then there is the papyrus font for avatar…
arionmiles 23 hours ago [-]
He just... highlighted Avatar. He clicked the dropdown menu, and then he randomly selected Papyrus. Like a...Like a thoughtless child just wandering by a garden, just yanking leaves along the way.
Avatar 6 and 7 planned (there's a joke there somewhere).
Papyrus on the big screen 'til mid-to-late 2030s.
genxy 1 days ago [-]
I know what you did!
bhaak 1 days ago [-]
Funny. I just googled this site 2 hours ago for a font inspiration for a makerspace logo.
Michroma is a Google Font alternative for Eurostile.
ErroneousBosh 23 hours ago [-]
Given the name you'd think it would be an alternative for Microgramma, but no, no - just look at the internal corners on letters like N, W, and V. In Microgramma they'd be flattened off but in Michroma and Eurostile they come to a point.
Animats 1 days ago [-]
Somewhere, an LLM trained on this and can now produce cliche future fonts.
I reckon this style originated much earlier from the fonts used on the covers of science fiction books and magazines.
skyberrys 17 hours ago [-]
Racing in from the distant future comes StarTrek, and it even has a star field in the background! The hidden trick to take your text into the future.
efitz 1 days ago [-]
I dunno, it’s kinda futuristic, but it’s missing the faux 3d effect where it appears to have warped up close to you and left a trail of light behind it, like the Star Trek example of the end. Nothing says “future” like fake 3d effects.
mrexroad 23 hours ago [-]
FWIW, ST:TNG only used the faux 3D effect for the season that aired on the year of Star Trek’s 25th anniversary. Subsequent seasons reverted to the 2d text.
xiaoyu2006 1 days ago [-]
A genuinely fun post.
ctippett 1 days ago [-]
I agree! A refreshing interlude to the cybersecurity postmortems and corporate layoff news.
harimau777 1 days ago [-]
I kind of wish they had used something other than Eurostyle for the starting font in their example since it is already a font that has become associated with sci-fi.
Still a great article though! More of this please!
There's "ye olde" in a gothic font.
Walk into a super market, every product is giving you non textual clues as to what it is, and why it's different from the identical thing right next to it.
You notice the odd ones out because you have to stop and work out what the thing is.
Edit. An example is spreadable 'butter', in the UK and Europe you can't say it's butter, it doesn't say it's butter, but I bet most people have never noticed that because it's in butter type packaging with the design language you'd expect.
What is the same is the color scheme and gradient. This likely is more about what was in style at the time for movie posters. You can also justify this is representive of the past part of back to the future.
https://logos.fandom.com/wiki/Orion_Pictures
> Posted on February 18, 2016 by Dave Addey
Great read otherwise, I know the author mentions their book, I do wonder if he covers the history of how these fonts came to be so standard... for future stuff
Papyrus on the big screen 'til mid-to-late 2030s.
Michroma is a Google Font alternative for Eurostile.
Is the Trajan fad over yet?[1]
[1] https://letterboxd.com/sethpaul/list/trajan-the-typeface-tha...
https://logos.fandom.com/wiki/Star_Trek:_The_Original_Series
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raumpatrouille_%E2%80%93_Die_p...
I reckon this style originated much earlier from the fonts used on the covers of science fiction books and magazines.
Still a great article though! More of this please!
Do we know who won those wars?
Keeeeerrrrrrrrrrrnnn!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Designers_Republic
https://play.date/games/hyper-vector/
Who knew back then that we'd go from less design to no design at all produced by machines.