With reference to the class lecture on Design and Branding, discuss typography and the meaning of the “Stranger Things” logo.
*Additional Notes that might help.”
contemporary instance of typeface and that is the stranger things title
card stranger things of course is the popular Netflix show
and it has a very recognizable title
and there’s actually a good deal of thought put into the typeface used in
that introduction and it’s a good way to get a
concrete example of how typefaces can suggest a wide array of cultural
possibilities in the case of stranger things as you’ll see it’s supposed to evoke the science
fiction and horror of the 1980s for very good reasons
so in a moment I’ll play the stranger things introduction I’m sure
all of you have seen it before but just as a reminder um
you know I’ll play the introduction and then we’ll play a short video that’s about the creation of
the uh stranger things title card and the type of font that it’s using
and why it’s using that kind of font again I’m you know sort of reinforcing
through all of these examples the fact that even though most people might take for
granted typefaces they actually communicate visually a considerable
amount of information and let’s also remember that this
information is uh culturally specific so the same typeface might not
translate this in the same way in a different culture for the stranger things title
sequence we’re talking about a very like north American
context for [Music] the horror and science fiction novels of the
1980s and the typeface that they used
the Netflix horror mystery show stranger things has been praised for its pitch perfect homage to the 1980s and that
includes its great opening credit sequence it plays for almost a full minute before every episode but it looks
so good i never skipped over it
watching it made me wonder what does it take to make something like this so I called up — she’s a
creative director at imaginary forces the studio that made the title sequence you want it to feel original you want it
to feel like that title sequence couldn’t work in front of another show
you may not have heard of imaginary forces but you’ve probably seen their work they’re responsible for the opening credits to mad men boardwalk empire
chuck the pacific Jessica jones late night with Seth Meyers i could go on it’s a long list
when they first got on the phone with stranger things show winners matt and ross duffer they knew they wanted to go
for a style similar to what the studio r greenberg associates did in the 70s and 80s with alien the dead zone and altered
states the duffers had sent us these paperback books probably ones that they read as kids right and so we looked at
the typography on those and you know they range right but they’re all kind of in the same vein of popular typefaces of
the 80s she sent me the early drafts of the title sequence and you can clearly see the influence of those book covers
the duffer brothers picked this one which eventually became this
let’s talk about the typeface it’s called itc bengat and it was made in 1978 by a jazz percussionist turned
designer named ed bengat here it is on the choose your own adventure book series from the 80s and 90s and on the
smith’s 1987 album strange ways here we come it’s also been the font of paramount’s FBI piracy warning since
1995. i often think of the sequence as really a celebration of that typeface in
a way too because you really get to see the most beautiful parts of it in the old days before animation software title
sequences were shot optically which is just another way of saying that they were made manually frame by frame with a
projector and a camera for stranger things the title designers wanted to replicate that gritty look they wanted
to make it look like they were imperfections in the image so to do that they rigged up these things they called them kotalis it’s basically an old film
format that produces a really high contrast image and they filmed what it looked like when light shined through those film letters
we referenced some of those inconsistencies those like what you call mistakes we wanted it to have this
tactile feel and we want it to feel organic and of the time period they then use those physical references to animate
the titles digitally that’s why you see subtle flickering and shaking in the text the end result is an eerie mix of
digital and physical mediums and with this great track from the synth band survive it sets the tone for one of the
summer’s biggest tv hits
okay so you get a sense of the history of the uh typeface for stranger things
title credits the font is bengat
it is a serif font so it has those little
hooks on the edge and the ends of the letters it’s important to you know make some
Distinctions were with the language that we’re using so a font is one particular weight and style of a
larger typeface typefaces are categories comprised of many different fonts
and we’re going to actually talk about some of those differences in relation to
corporate logos in later in this discussion so
for example seraph is a typeface and times new roman which is i think the
default on word these days uh is a font that is part of the serif
family so the seraph of course as i said it just means there’s a little line
attached to the end of a stroke in a letter or symbol typically
serif fonts suggest tradition and sans-serif suggests modern so
the arial font in word is a sans-serif font
and it’s usually associated with things that are modern things that are contemporary
