Archer logo

Archer is an American adult animated spy comedy series that ran from 2009 to 2023. Baveuse is used for the logo, opening titles, and end credits.

Producer and art director Neal Holman describes how the titles were created in an interview with Art of the Title.

Baveuse numerals on a clock, as part of the opening sequence

The opening credit for lead voice actor H. Jon Benjamin. A dot has been added over the J, which is animated to move from one credit to the next.

End credits

Czechoslovak poster for the Soviet post-WWII spy film Boj po vítězství (Бой после победы; English: The Battle after the Victory) from 1972, directed by Villen Azarov based on the novel by Vasili Ardamatsky, and starring Mikhail Volkov, Georgy Zhjonov, and Nikolai Prokopovich.

“Boj” appears to be patterned after Blowfly Black, a typeface designed by Bruce Stainsby that was issued by Mecanorma around 1972. It’s not a direct use, though: poster designer Miroslav Pechánek enlarged the counters, made the stem in b thinner, and replaced the small circular dot on j with a wide rectangular one.

Similarly, “PO VÍTĚZSTVÍ” looks like it started out with Times New Roman. Some details are off, and probably were modified in the process. Most strikingly, O is wider and has a tilted contrast axis, and Z is narrower.

The sans at the top is the wide style of Folio. The small line at the bottom is set in a Bodoni-like style, possibly Empiriana Antikva.

Here’s a short biography of the artist, from a 2015 exhibition (auto-translated):

Miroslav Pechánek (born 1945 in Prague) graduated from the Secondary School of Arts and Crafts in Prague and started out as a sign painter. In 1967, he became artist of the Regional Museum in Písek, where his first posters were created. Since 1970 freelance graphic designer (member of the Association of Applied Graphics, Prague), when he mainly devoted himself to book and poster typography. His work has won many important awards, has been presented at many exhibitions and book fairs, and published in prestigious professional magazines.

From Wikipedia:

Citadel is an American spy action thriller television series created by Josh Appelbaum, Bryan Oh, and David Weil for Amazon Prime Video, with the Russo brothers acting as executive producers.

The font used for the movie title is TA Modern Times, which I authored. Just the letter A has been edited. The typeface family consists of 102 styles. The version used here is TA Modern Times Exp Bold or TA Modern Times Semi X Bold.

The sans-serif caps used for the credits are from Interstate Bold. “New Series” is set in Amazon Ember and “April 28” in an unidentified sans similar to Sharp Grotesk Medium 25 [see comments].

Storyline:

What if you lost your memory? What if a spy didn’t know they were a spy? Years ago, the top agents of Citadel, Mason Kane (Richard Madden) and Nadia Sinh (Priyanka Chopra Jonas), had their minds wiped. But, they’re called back to action as sinister forces emerge from the past. With the help of spymaster Bernard Orlick (Stanley Tucci), these former lovers must remember the past to save the future.

US one sheet poster by an unknown designer for the 1997 spy comedy film Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. The film is directed by Jay Roach and stars Mike Myers in a dual role as the titular Austin Powers and his arch-enemy Dr. Evil. It is the first film in the Austin Powers series.

The film's title and tagline are set in Anzeigen Grotesk — potentially using the digital version from Linotype. The distorted psychedelic text occupying the rest of the poster is based on a type which was originally known as Scorpio or Hoopla, but is also known under various other aliases in digital form, such as BellBottom, Groovy, Balloon or Doobie.

In 1973, the International Typeface Corporation presented ITC Tiffany in the inaugural issue of their promotional U&lc magazine and advertised it as early as March that year. According to the info stated in a later issue (vol. 8 no. 2 from June 1981), ITC offered the typeface in 1974, which is also the date given by most contemporary sources.

Irrespective of one’s definition what exactly constitutes a release, this dust jacket is an early use of ITC Tiffany. The book by Donald McCormick (written as Richard Deacon) was published by Taplinger in 1974.

Ed Benguiat designed Tiffany as “a merge of two typefaces, Caxton and Ronaldson”, both of which originated in the 1880s. This ancestry is visible in the long angled serifs and the R’s leg that pierces through the counter. What these 19th-century typefaces didn’t have is a wide range of weights. The uncredited jacket designer contrasted Tiffany’s two extreme weights, Heavy and Light, both used in all caps. With a typeface so strong and full of flavor, they needed nothing else.

Today, Ed Benguiat would have turned 95 – happy birthday!

From the inner flap:

In this book, which will particularly interest readers of John Barron’s KGB, Richard Deacon successfully attempts the almost impossible, for the Chinese Secret Service is so secret there are some who do not believe it exists. It seldom surfaces and there are very few defectors and very few captured agents. Accordingly, the author established his own private intelligence network, called Operation Jackdaw. Using reports from his many ‘spies’, much thoro research, and interviews with defectors and many other Chinese, Mr. Deacon has pieced together an absorbing picture of the tremendous ramifications of the Chinese Intelligence – little of which has ever appeared in print before.

Side note: it’s disturbing to show this book (which looks a lot like a Cold War product) and at the same time to read about China being accused of operating secret “police stations” in Europe.

The credits and first line of the series title are set in Microchip, with a stencilled version of Helvetica Medium Condensed used for the second line.

Title sequence for the 1988 American television series Mission: Impossible, designed by Betty Green. Though originally envisaged as a remake, the revival is a continuation of the 1966–1973 television series of the same name.

The credits and first line of the series title are set in Microchip, a computer style typeface seen in Andresen Typographics: One Line Showings catalog from 1985. It would seem that the M in the series title has been slightly modified with an added enclosed square, possibly to evoke the MICR-style of Moore Computer or Magnetic Ink, as when used in other places it does not appear this way. A stencilled version of Helvetica Medium Condensed is used for the second line of the series title.

Other title cards are set in Compacta Black, sometimes paired with ITC American Typewriter which is also used for the end titles.

Other title cards are set it Compacta Black, sometimes paired with ITC American Typewriter.

The end titles are set in ITC American Typewriter. The IMF logo, occasionally seen in these end titles and throughout the series, is also based on Microchip.

Dust jacket for the first edition of Ian Fleming’s debut novel Casino Royale, devised by the author himself. The titling is likely illustrated, but based on Fry’s Ornamented. The title on the spine of jacket and hardcover is closer to the typeface’s original letterforms, see S. Text on the jacket is set predominantly in what looks to be Times New Roman. Title page text set in Bell.

Dust jacket (front)

Full dust jacket with inner flaps

Cover and spine

Title page

TV viewers in the UK are – rather nervously – watching and mostly enjoying the new ITV spy thriller series The Ipcress File, set in 1962 during the depths of the Cold War and in the shadow of nuclear war. The six episodes recreate the grimy looks of 1960s London and Berlin with impressive attention to detail, including vintage cars, cinema posters, and a suitably wide range of political attitudes and social prejudices.

The Egyptienne Bold Condensed typeface for the title conveys (to me – perhaps I've been psychologically conditioned, like Harry Palmer?) a nostalgic feeling, as if a big brass nameplate has fallen off the back of an old steam engine.

Many viewers of the new series will inevitably compare it with the iconic original film, The Ipcress File, made in 1965, starring Michael Caine. This was regarded as a realistic portrayal of contemporary grimy London. In that film, though, the title sequence used stencil-style lettering to convey bureaucratic rubber stamps and secret dossiers stored in manila folders. The 1960s wasn’t a decade of nostalgia.

For the opening credits, the TV series uses Type.Today’s Normalidad Extended Black.

The logo seen during the opening credits

The cover page of the press pack

Opening credits. This tilted camera angle is frequently seen in this series.

For comparison: the stencil lettering using for the 1965 film

Teaser poster campaign

What happens when a man who believes he has retired from MI6 is called back to do one more job to regain his life, only to discover that this job may mean he has no life to go back to.—IMDb

Deep State is a British eight-part espionage thriller television series starring Mark Strong and produced by Endor Productions for the Fox Networks Group Europe and Africa. The pilot is written by Matthew Parkhill—Wikipedia

Alias Cactus is used for title graphics.

Projection onto the side of a building

Translucent cover in London’s Metro newspaper

Launch campaign — Teaser trailer

Launch campaign — Teaser trailer

Launch campaign — Teaser trailer

Launch campaign — Teaser trailer

Launch campaign — Teaser trailer

Deep State Title Sequence

Deep State Title Sequence

Deep State Title Sequence

Deep State Title Sequence

Deep State Title Sequence

Illustrations by Hector G