Albertus finds itself in another sci-fi cult classic. The opening credit is done in golden 3D lettering, with some modification to the letterform: U has no bottom-right stem, R tail is longer than usual, ampersand uses the alternate form, and J is a non-descending alternate which was originally a standard variant when the typeface was released. According to the ending credits, Robert Schaefer and the company called Title House are responsible for the work.

After the opening exposition and credit, the second exposition starts (this film has a lot of background exposition, which is still not enough to fully make sense of itself, and often the main point of its criticism). The planet names are typeset in ITC Avant Garde Gothic.

Small caps are simply scaled caps with no weight adjustment.

The ending credit is set in Helvetica.

Workprint Opening title.

Blade Runner enjoyed multiple editions starting even before the release. Seven major edits are known to the public today, including Workprint (pre-theatrical), US-theatrical, International-theatrical, Director's Cut, and Final Cut which are available. In terms of changes in typography, the Workprint and the theatrical cuts are the main focus.

In the Workprint, the title starts with Impact, followed by a pseudo-dictionary definition of replicant set in Helvetica and Goudy. The rest of the title is set in Goudy, including the ending credit.

In the theatrical release, together with the addition of Harrison Ford’s narration and the “happy ending”, the type choice was unified, now only using Goudy. A common misunderstanding among those who have not seen Blade Runner is that it is an action film, and the use of large Impact does seem to suggest the tone that way, which feels misleading. With the thorough use of Goudy, the audience’s expectation is set better. The typography remains the same thereafter.

Workprint Opening title.

Workprint Opening title.

Theatrical Cut opening title.

Theatrical Cut opening title.

Theatrical Cut opening title.

John Carpenter teamed up with Kurt Russell and Debra Hill again to return to his old character, Snake Plissken from Escape From New York, apparently pushed by Russell who enjoyed playing Snake. Albertus is used in the opening and ending credit, although the type choice gets more ecletic elsewhere, using Skia and Eurostile essentially for the same purpose, to tell time.

They Live is among the best films that use typography for storytelling. The aliens are invading the earth, constantly sending subliminal messages to humans hidden in advertisements. Aliens themselves are taking over the planet on site, disguised as humans. The protagonists learn the truth after wearing a special pair of sunglasses that reveals the disguise.

The hidden messages are done in bold sans serif. Lettering in matte paintings are done by hand but props are using typefaces, either Tempo or Twentieth Century (despite one might think of Futura as primary example of geometric sans, it seems to never appear), or several unidentified condensed grotesques. The typography seems to reflect corporate advertising of the ’70s and ’80s, where strong bold sans was a common sight, and brilliantly ties into Carpenter’s commentary on consumerism.

The film opens and ends with Albertus, John Carpenter’s staple typeface. Titles and opticals by Pacific Title.

Twentieth Century Ultrabold.

Twentieth Century

STAY ASLEEP is set in Tempo. OBEY is unidentified. Fonts In Use reader Robie notes that Classroom JNL by Jeff Levine is a match. This font wasn’t released before 2009, though.

Tempo

John Carpenter is known to cast the same actors repeatedly, and Kurt Russell is a notable example. That includes his typeface choices. Interestingly enough, when Russell stars in Carpenter films, the opening credit is almost always typeset in Albertus, apart from Elvis (1979). Carpenter, Russell, and Albertus became the hidden ingredients for cult success recipe.

Carpenter uses Albertus again in Big Trouble In Little China. The title logo is custom-lettered, but otherwise the film uses Albertus throughout, including the ending credit.

The strength of Albertus is well demonstrated here. The text is quite blurry even in the high definition format, but the robust design of the typeface makes sure that its feature survives. Especially in the days of VHS when fine details might disappear easily, typefaces like Albertus and Optima would have been good substitutes for a conventional roman.

Title designed by Dan Curry, titles by Cinema Research Corporation, and opticals by Pacific Title (the same company who did Escape From New York).

The title logo is a nice callback to the original ’51 version.

The Thing is another example of Albertus in Carpenter films. There are two things to observe: it is horizontally stretched in the opening, and John Carpenter’s credit features ‘J’ with descenders cut off. His previous film, Escape from New York, used a proper descender-less alternate ‘J’, so it could be either that he wanted to use it in The Thing too but did/could not explain his intention to the title designer well, or he just wanted it trimmed.

Albertus is also used in the 2011 prequel, and the horizontal proportion is squeezed this time.

The ‘J’ is trimmed despite a descender-less alternate existed and Carpenter used it before.

The horizontal scaling is normal in the ending credit.

The ‘J’ in JOHN is a titling form, which is now an alternate but originally the only form in the first release of Albertus (1936). Two years later, the lowercase was added as well as ‘J’ and ‘Q’ with descender, which have become the default.

In John Carpenter’s films, the typeface choice in the opening sequence is quite consistent. Albertus seems to be his favourite, appearing more than any other typefaces in his filmography. Escape From New York seems to be the first and most playful of all.

Carpenter, or whoever was going to be his long-time credit typesetter colleague, knew there were some alternate capital letters, and made spontaneous use of them in Escape From New York.

According to the credits, the titles are done by the company called Pacific Title.

Notice the alternate M in the first line, while all other M’s are the standard one.

Second appearance of his name uses the descending J.

During the film, this reverse stress lettering is prominent. It is unidentified at the time of writing.

The film ends with Helvetica.

Linotype: the film DVD. The first use of Metro Nova.

Linotype: the film by Doug Wilson was the first use of Metro Nova. He asked the Monotype designer Toshi Omagari to digitize the original Metro for use in the film, which later became a proper revival project, Metro Nova. There seems to be a misunderstanding that the film used Metro Nova (this article for instance), but it used the faithful digitisation of the hot metal Metro for the sake of authenticity. Everything made after the film itself, notably DVD cover and booklet, was set in Metro Nova.

Not only is the DVD booklet set in Metro Nova, it also contributes a spread to introduce the face.

The typeface used in the film itself is a straight digitisation of the original Metroblack made by Toshi. This digital version can only be seen in the film and his hard drive. The film also uses Excelsior.

Wordmark of Chrono Trigger, a Super Nintendo game released by Square (currently Square Enix) in 1995.

The typeface was also used in the sequel, Chrono Cross, released in 1999 for PlayStation. It appears that the designer for Chrono Cross could not identify the typeface used before, so he made up the word CROSS in a similar style.