Remedy Entertainment. License: All Rights Reserved.

Remedy Entertainment’s 2019 game Control takes place in a paranormal building that appears in a 1960s brutalist design – and that seems intent on making sure nothing inside gets much more modern. The game’s designers expertly reinforce that aesthetic with a limited palette of utilitarian typefaces.

Case files, research papers, and correspondence you come across are set in Linotype’s version of Akzidenz-Grotesk, Basic Commercial (the question mark is the tell tale glyph), a style favored by ‘Swiss’ design which became popular in the 1960s.

Remedy Entertainment. License: All Rights Reserved.

Basic Commercial helps convey a sense of plain, matter-of-fact, government bureaucracy.

Remedy Entertainment. License: All Rights Reserved.

The game warns players the interior of the building shifts around; pay attention to green directional signs to avoid getting lost. What better typeface for green wayfinding signs than Interstate, based on the FHWA fonts that saw wider exposure in the 1960s as the Interstate Highway System expanded.

ITC Avant Garde Gothic sees restrained use with its bold weight announcing the entry to major areas, remaining on screen even while action continues, commanding attention. It also pulls double duty, serving as the wordmark, also with restraint; just a single ligature and no alternate letterforms help give it a plain-but-unique style. While the typeface did not appear until the 1970s, its inspiration, Avant Garde magazine’s logotype, had its origins in the 1960s.

The designers even keep the typographic identity consistent in-world, and out, with both UI and HUD elements set in a mix of Interstate and Basic Commercial.

Remedy Entertainment. License: All Rights Reserved.

Wayfinding signs typeset in Interstate

Remedy Entertainment. License: All Rights Reserved.

Remedy Entertainment. License: All Rights Reserved.

ITC Avant Garde Gothic wants you to know where you are

Remedy Entertainment. License: All Rights Reserved.

HUDs keep the design aesthetic consistent with objectives & locations set in Interstate, and supporting information in Basic Commercial

Here’s a sharp album cover by Cory Schmitz that jumps out even at small sizes (online). I first saw it on Bandcamp. It's a remix album — a good one! — so that may explain typographic approach. Looks like there’s a slight stroke added to the title, but it survives. Even though the apostrophe died.

12" LP artwork for Takes Time, the latest album by Jim Guthrie. Available now. — coryschmitz.com