Series of posters for Hotline, a succession of three events organized by Arte Faact and Combo Bongos at a local club in Nantes called Macadam. The identity had to be inspired by the retro flyers of sex chat line advertising, using a real phone number to give the practical informations for the event.

I used a mix of script fonts from different eras, as it was a good way to tell the story of a phone number quickly written on the napkin of a bar or a restaurant. The generously curved lines of West Cooper Nouveau Swash also provide a feeling of seduction and give coherence to the identity.

Risograph printed at Collectif Bonus.

From its startup roots in 2002, WhereverSIM (Germany) has grown exponentially and now holds bold ambitions to become the market leader in its category.

HYPERFOCUS completed a full rebrand in 2025, starting with the development of their brand strategy to help redefine their mission and sharpen their positioning. Their goal was to create a brand that breaks the mould, one that’s bold, memorable, and unapologetically different. The brand typeface is Tomato Grotesk.

A cabinet card by photographer Charles W. Bee (1871–1932) from approx. 1895. From Indiana Album:

Lineman George Keifer (1878–1953) of Petersburg poses on a telephone or electric pole for photographer Charles W. Bee. He wears a suit with climbing spikes or gaffs strapped to his legs. He holds a blowtorch. This view looks east from Center Street toward the Palace Lodge, a brick Italianate building constructed as a lodge hall in 1892.

Bee’s name is shown on the bottom of the card in Flirt (ca. 1886). The bold roman caps for “Winslow, Ind” are from a smaller size of Ronaldson Clarendon (1885).

Letterpress printed advertisement poster and animation series for Typographic-Printing-Program.com.

The posters have been printed from traditional wood type and additional pantograph-cut pear wood sorts of Plakatschrift Didot for the larger sizes (“RRRrrriing”, “Kerning Depression?”, “Sans or Serif?”, and “Legibility Emergency?”), traditional plastic poster type and additional laser-cut acrylic glass sorts also of Plakatschrift Didot for the secondary information (“Call the typographic helpline …”) as well as some Ludlow slugs of Gothic Condensed No. 2 for the smallest size and a piece of hand-cut linoleum for the phone.

The animations have been produced from photographic reproductions of the printed posters.

Cinemaissí Film Festival takes place in Helsinki, Finland. The event focuses on promoting and showcasing films from Latin America, Spain, and Portugal and their main objective is to introduce and celebrate the cultural and cinematic diversity of Spanish-speaking and Portuguese-speaking countries. The festival presents a wide selection of films that encompass various genres and themes, ranging from dramas and comedies to documentaries and experimental films.

During the festival, films are screened in their original languages with Finnish or English subtitles to ensure that the audience can enjoy the works in their most authentic form. In addition to film screenings, the festival also organizes talks, panel discussions, and special events with directors, actors, and other film professionals.

The Cinemaissí Film Festival is an important platform for spreading Latin American, Spanish, and Portuguese film culture in Finland, and provides a unique opportunity for Finnish audiences to discover different films and cultural perspectives.

This design was made for Pelican Club’s single release “Call Waiting.” The layout and style is an homage to Blondie’s release for “Call Me”, which also used the Kaufmann typeface for the title of the song. The terminal in g is stylized to look like the end of a telephone cord.

The original cover art additionally used a cursive font for the name of the band, which in this case was approximated with Last Dance.

Single cover for Pelican Club’s “Laura Call Me Up”, created in 2024 for the digital release. The title uses layered Mexcellent to create dimension. “Pelican Club” uses Dunbar.

Poster for the Paolo Nutini concert at Bonus Arena, Hull, in 2022. The name of the Scottish singer-songwriter is set in Motter Ombra and the other texts are set in Powerr’s Semi Bold weight.

Half Sheet (22″×28″) poster

From Wikipedia:

Fear Over the City (French: Peur sur la ville) is a 1975 French crime film directed by Henri Verneuil and starring Jean-Paul Belmondo. […] It was released in the United States and the United Kingdom as The Night Caller.

PLINC’s vibrating Tension in use on the posters for the Columbia Pictures release of the R-rated “psycho-dramatic film” with music by Ennio Morricone. Belmondo can be seen in the role of policeman Jean Letellier trying to track down a serial killer of young women.

Compare to the poster for Shivers from the same year, featuring typography that appears to emulate Tension’s effect.

36″×14″ poster

Original album cover

Bananaphone is an album by Canadian children’s singer Raffi, released in September 1994.

“Bananaphone” is set in a modified version of Remedy Single. “RAFFI” is set in ITC Kabel Demi. The track listing uses different weights of the aforementioned two fonts, i.e. Remedy Double and ITC Kabel Medium.

On some reissues, “RAFFI” is in Eras Demi instead of ITC Kabel. This only applies to the front cover.

Art direction by Kiki Kambylis, The Design Works, with photography by Colin Goldie, GM Studios.

[More info on Discogs]

For comparison: “Bananaphone” in unmodified Remedy Single. The letter p is a capital P, lowered and rotated. The letter e lost its decorative dots and the smudge on the crossbar.

Track listing

CD label

1995 reissue with the Eras font

“Call Me When You Stop Stressing” is the tagline of the late 2022 apparel drop by No Pressure, the merchandise clothing line by YouTuber and influencer Luke Eich.

The typeface used on the hoodies is Oakley by Mark van Leeuwen. T-shirts and caps combine ED Lavonia (with a customized M) by Eko Setiawan and Nellie Display by Break Maiden.

Fashion Kush is a company that produces gadgets and appareal for smokers and weed lovers. All gadgets from their Successful Stoner product line sport a logo pairing the calligraphic Nautica with outlined Harry Obese, creating a sporty/tennis vibe.

Once Upon a Dream is the fourth studio album by psychedelic rock band The Rascals, released on February 19, 1968.

The album cover design and the sculptures featured therein were designed by Dino Danelli (b. 1940), the drummer of the band. Aileen Winter is credited for the typography.

The band name and album title are both set in Chwast Art Tone (c. 1966) by Seymour Chwast (b. 1931).

[More info on Discogs]

Still from the opening credits, with “Paramount Pictures presents” in Ad Lib

The titles and promotional materials for the 1995 cult-classic movie Clueless use Ad Lib (1961) and FF Fontesque (1994).

The movie logo is based on Ad Lib, with partly stretched letterforms arranged on a bouncing baseline, enclosed in an ellipse. FF Fontesque is featured for the secondary text on the movie poster as well as for the trailer.

The DVD cover for the 2005 re-issue titled the “Whatever!” Edition also uses Ad Lib for the lead actress’s name, and the sub-title. This cover adds rhinestones to the title to make it sparkly and the whole thing is on a ridiculous pink background. Classic!

Still from the opening credits, with the movie logo in Ad Lib

Theatrical release poster. The tagline “Sex, Clothes, Popularity. Is There A Problem Here?” is set in FF Fontesque. The credits are shown in a light weight of Futura Condensed, in stretched all caps.

Still from the trailer, with “Paramount Pictures presents” in FF Fontesque.

Still from the trailer

Still from the trailer, with “Alicia Silverstone” in FF Fontesque

Still from the trailer, with the movie logo in Ad Lib

DVD cover for the 2005 re-issue

The new sign at Sama Phone’s shop in Sanaa, Yemen, uses Nasser, an Arabic font designed by Eyad Al-Samman.

Halloween in upon us and what is better to do than browsing through some of nightmarish typefaces here on Fonts In Use! These items – cushion, T-Shirt, pin badge, phone cover, etc. – are done by Reza Modiri and he used an Arabic/Persian horror font named Si47ash Kaboos (Kaboos translates as “Nightmare”) to do so. I did this font couple of years ago and finally I found some good use of it to share it here. More info at: https://47fonts.com/

“The Wedding” (No. 268) ft. Bookman Swash Bold in all caps italics with three swash alternates.

Covers for various clip books of line art issued in 1975 by Harry Volk Jr. Art Studio, Pleasantville, New Jersey. See the previous post about the clip books issued in 1955 for more information on Harry Volk Jr. Art Studio.

In most issues from this volume, “Clip Book of Line Art” is set in a light weight of ITC Avant Garde Gothic, with alternates for A and e.

While Volk predominantly used phototype styles from Filmotype’s library in the late 1950s and early 1960s, they had switched to Photo-Lettering (and later ITC) by the end of the 1960s. The covers in this post also feature a number of faces that originated elsewhere. Burko was issued by Headliners (and copied by Facsimile Fonts as part of the Blippo series). Checkmate started out at Schaedler (and was adopted by Photo-Lettering). Yagi Double is a Facsimile Fonts creation. Their Bob Trogman claims credit for Uncle Bill. Zipper and Premier Shaded are Letraset originals. Archie and Rock Opera may have been created at Lettergraphics (the latter is a derivative of Letraset’s Frankfurter).

Or did Volk maybe tap into Formatt’s library of faces for dry-transfer lettering? Their catalog no. 5 from 1974 shows several of the styles used on these covers, including Rock Opera, Tip Top, Eurostile, Uncle Bill (as Brother Bill), Checkmate (as Tournament), Copperplate (as Broker Shaded), Archie (as Chuckle), Yagi Double (as Circuit Double), and Titan.

“Holidays” (No. 269) ft. Benguiat Caslon.

“Entertainment” (No. 271) ft. ITC Neon, set on a curve.

“Telephones” (No. 272) ft. Cooper Black Italic with swash caps and Folio with biform alternates.

“Occupations” (No. 273) ft. Eurostile Bold Extended and Akzidenz-Grotesk.

“Winter” (No. 274) with one of the adaptations of Mexico Olympic, probably Hotline by Lettergraphics.

“Men” (No. 276) ft. Checkmate.

“Spring” (No. 279) ft. Saphir.

“Holidays” (No. 277) ft. Archie.

“Circus-Fair” (No. 628) ft. West Barnum Ultra.

“Spring & Summer Sports” (No. 629) ft. more Eurostile Bold Extended.

“The Farm” (No. 630) ft. ITC Busorama with its alternate glyphs.

“Summer” (No. 631) ft. caps from Tip-Top.

“Medicine” (No. 632) ft. Columna.

“Media” (No. 635) ft. Burko.

“Homemaker” (No. 637) ft. Zipper.

“Human Relations” (No. 638) ft. Columna Solid with what looks to be a customized R, or maybe an alternate that was exclusive to some (VGC’s?) phototype version. Bauer’s original (open) Columna has two forms for this letter, none of which matches the one seen here.

“Fall & Winter Sports” (No. 639) ft. Revue with EndcapS.

“Christmas” (No. 640) ft. American Uncial Initials for “Christmas”, with the text version used for the line below. [Thanks, Bryson!]

“Crowds” (No. 643) ft. Premier Shaded.

“Couples” (No. 644) ft. Yagi Double.

“Safety” (No. 645) ft. Stencil (Ludlow).

“Teens” (No. 647) ft. Rock Opera AKA Shady Deal, a copy of Frankfurter with a line pattern fill.

“Groups” (No. 648) ft. Uncle Bill.

“Industry” (No. 649) ft. Blippo Black.

“Children” (No. 650) ft. Davida.

“Borders” (No. G60) ft. Orbit Shaded. The logo of the Grafika subseries is in ITC Fat Face. The script appears to be lettering.

“Pointers” (No. G53) ft. Novel Gothic with arrows.

“Conrad Zilch” (No. G51) ft. Banco …

… accompanied by “Cora Zilch” (No. G56).

“Design Devices” (No. G54) ft. Titan, a Baby Teeth follower of unclear origin.

“Money” (No. G59) ft. Bond Shaded AKA Bond Shaded.

“Contests” (No. G61) ft. Orbit Rimmed.

Recorded in 2019 by Leon Bridges featuring John Mayer, “Inside Friend” sounds very timely, right now. Cover artwork by Online Ceramics who also designed Mayer’s 2018 single “New Light.” Online Ceramics is also offering two shirt designs up for sale, with proceeds partially going to Covid-19/Coronavirus efforts. Mushmouth PB is a 2018 digital interpretation of Albert by Lettergraphics. The title is in Pluto, or probably the digital version named K22 Lucifer No. 1.

“Old Fashioned” (No. 166) features two Western-style typefaces that probably originated at Filmotype in the 1960s. They’re both shown in an undated c.1974 Filmomaster specimen, as Van Horn and Quincy. The latter is also known as Amanda.

Covers for various clip books of line art issued in 1968 by Harry Volk Jr. Art Studio, Pleasantville, New Jersey. See the previous post about the clip books issued in 1955 for more information on Harry Volk Jr. Art Studio.

The bottom lines use Alternate Gothic Compressed and Univers.

“Holidays” (No. 167) ft. Gonzales Jeanette with a custom star dot that echoes the fuse.

“Expressions” (No. 168) ft. Reklame. This old German typeface was adopted by Photo-Lettering and shown in their 1971 catalog as Reclame. The punctuation is from Pistilli Roman, see the comments.

“Strength” (No. 170) ft. West Behemoth with tight and overlapping spacing and the monocular g.

“Telephones” (No. 171) ft. Filmotype Gamma.

“Religion” (No. 172) ft. Baker Chalone.

“Entertainment” (No. 174) ft. Norton Vaudeville.

“Contests” (No. 175) ft. Eurostile Bold Extended.

“Atmosphere” (No. 480) ft. Playbill.

“Direct Mail” (No. 481) ft. Univers, Venus Extended, and Franklin Gothic Wide.

“America” (No. 482) ft. Egyptienne Bold Condensed.

“Summer” (No. 483) ft. Chwast Art Tone on an angle.

“Marine” (No. 484) ft. Kalligraphia.

“Western” (No. 485) ft. Bookman Swash Bold Italic

“Autumn” (No. 486) ft. Staudel Xenotype J.

“Science” (No. 487) ft. Britannic.

“Fall & Winter Sports” (No. 488). This narrow grotesk looks a lot like an outlined version of Schmalfette Grotesk, or maybe PLINC’s adaptation Swiss Gothic, but it seems the ampersand doesn’t match. Any insights are welcome. The same outlined style appears on Volk covers from 1964 and 1974, while the “Law & Order” booklet from 1966 uses the similar Permanent Headline.

“Transportation” (No. 489) ft. Permanent Headline.

“Christmas” (No. 490) ft. Inserat-Grotesk.

“Couples” (No. 492) ft. Whimzitype 3600. Illustration by Tom Sawyer.

“Groups” (No. 494) ft. Futura Light.

“Insurance” (No. 495) ft. Permanent Massiv. The small text on this cover is set in Helvetica.

“Occupations” (No. 497) likewise shows light caps from Futura. Illustration by Tom Sawyer.

“Women” (No. 499) ft. Smoke in all caps.

“Money” (No. 500) ft. more Futura Light.

“Spring & Summer Sports” (number unknown), ft. Eurostile.

“Register and Vote” from the Paste Pot & Scissors subseries (No. PP 105), ft. Pacella Monitor and Franklin Gothic. The small type at the bottom is in Eurostile.

“Announcers” from the Paste Pot & Scissors subseries (No. PP 107), ft. Photo-Lettering’s West Behemoth Italic Swash with swash alternates and overlapping glyphs.

“Luck” from the Paste Pot & Scissors subseries (No. PP 108), ft. Mansard (with contour), another face available from Photo-Lettering. It might also be Jim Dandy, a contoured variant of Slim Dandy by Lettergraphics.

“The Year” (No. PP109) ft. more all-caps Smoke, here with its peculiar Y.

“Clichés” (No. PP110) ft. Palette on an angle as well as an early use of PLINC’s Ballard.

“Borders” (No. PP115) ft. Clarendon caps.

Source: www.evangelion.co.jp ©カラー／Project Eva. ©カラー／EVA製作委員会　©カラー. License: All Rights Reserved.

Created and directed by Hideaki Anno, Neon Genesis Evangelion (新世紀エヴァンゲリオン, often abbreviated as NGE or simply EVA) is a Japanese media franchise consisting of four main parts: a twenty-six-episode TV series (1995), two sets of film adaptations (1997 and 2007–), and a manga (1995–2013). Set in the postapocalyptic fortified city Tokyo-3, the series revolves around Shinji Ikari, a teenage boy recruited by his estranged father into a shadowy paramilitary organization known as NERV, for which he and other teenagers must pilot giant biomachines (“Evangelions”) to defeat incoming monsters (“Angels”) who threaten another apocalypse (“Impact”).

After starting out as a typical mechanical-robot (“mecha”) anime, Evangelion gradually evolved into an existentialist deconstruction of its own genre, immediately winning critical acclaim. Its sustained popularity through the years spawned a plethora of spinoff mangas, novel adaptations, games, advertisement tie-ins, and even pachinko gambling machines, leading it to permeate Japanese culture and eventually become a worldwide sensation. Many of its visual motifs became cultural lexicons, including its identity typeface: Matisse EB.

Matisse EB and the Original Evangelion

Evangelion was among the first anime to create a consistent typographic identity across its visual universe, from title cards to NERV’s user interfaces. Subcontractors usually painted anything type-related in an anime by hand, so it was a novel idea at the time for a director to use desktop typesetting to exert typographic control. Although sci-fi anime tended to use either sans serifs or hand lettering that mimicked sans serifs in 1995, Anno decided to buck that trend, choosing a display serif for stronger visual impact. After flipping through Fontworks’ specimen catalog, he personally selected the extra-bold (EB) weight of Matisse (マティス), a Mincho-style serif family.

Source: blog.justfont.com Ⓒ Francis Chow. License: All Rights Reserved.

Annotated printout of the L (Light) weight. Courtesy of Francis Chow.

Just as every mature metal type foundry in the West had to have a Garamond, Matisse was Fontworks’ answer to the Mincho genre for desktop typesetting. Since few computer typefaces existed at the time, completing the face quickly was paramount; stylistic exploration could come in later releases. Furthermore, because the typeface’s initial designer, Francis Chow, was working with inexperienced colleagues at the time, he wanted a direction simple enough for them to follow. A combination of haste and inexperience gave Matisse a plain look and feel, which turned out to make sense for Evangelion. The conservative skeletal construction restrained the characters’ personality so it wouldn’t compete with the animation; the extreme stroke contrast delivered the desired visual punch. Despite the fact that Matisse was drawn on the computer, many of its stroke corners were rounded, giving it a hand-drawn, fin-de-siècle quality.

License: All Rights Reserved.

The TV episodes’ opening sequence featured a mechanically compressed Matisse EB.

Source: anime-font.tumblr.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Matisse EB remained mechanically compressed when used in an episode, though less dramatically than in the title sequence.

In addition to a thorough graphic identity, Evangelion also pioneered a deep integration of typography as a part of animated storytelling—a technique soon to be imitated by later anime. Prime examples are the show’s title cards and flashing type-only frames mixed in with the animation. The title cards contain nothing but crude, black-and-white Matisse EB, and are often mechanically compressed to fit into interlocking compositions. This brutal treatment started as a hidden homage to the title cards in old Toho movies from the sixties and seventies, but soon became visually synonymous with Evangelion after the show first aired.

License: All Rights Reserved.

Japanese title card for Episode 1 (“Angel attack”).

License: All Rights Reserved.

Japanese title card for Episode 15 (“Lie and Silence”).

Source: eva-fan.com © カラー © みんなのエヴァンゲリオン(ヱヴァ)ファン. License: All Rights Reserved.

Japanese title cards, Episodes 1–26.

Innovating on the media of animated storytelling, Evangelion also integrates type-only flashes. Back then, these black-and-white, split-second frames were Anno’s attempt at imprinting subliminal messages onto the viewer, but have since become Easter eggs for die-hard Evangelion fans as well as motion signatures for the entire franchise.

License: All Rights Reserved.

License: All Rights Reserved.

License: All Rights Reserved.

Instead of letting Western distributors translate episode titles themselves, the Evangelion staff decided to offer their own English episode titles. These are not direct translations, but rather alternatives or subtitles, often featuring biblical or philosophical references that might be difficult to integrate using Japanese. The English title cards feature a number of different typefaces, often tightly tracked and mechanically compressed. While most titles use Helvetica, the words “NEON GENESIS EVANGELION” are set in one of the bootleg versions of Century or Century Schoolbook that come with numerous Japanese fonts. The same seriffed font (or a similar one) is used in all caps for the titles in Episodes 5, 6, 7, and 23; and in sentence case in Episodes 9, 11, 15, and 25. The lowercase exhibits aggressively shortened descenders, a common feature implemented in Japanese fonts to fit Latin glyphs into the character bounding box. A horizontally squeezed Times is used in 12, 26 (“Take Care of Yourself”), and 26' (“I Need You”). 25' (“Love is Destructive”) appears to feature Matisse EB’s Latin glyphs.

Source: knowyourmeme.com © 2007-2019 Literally Media Ltd. License: All Rights Reserved.

English title cards for the 26-episode TV series and The End of Evangelion, which contains two parts: “Love is Destructive” (alternative to Episode 25) and “I Need You” (alternative to Episode 26).

License: All Rights Reserved.

Short flash frames in the post-credit Easter egg in Rebuild of Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance.

Established in title cards, this combination of Matisse EB and all-caps Helvetica soon bled into various aspects of Evangelion, most notably the HUD user interfaces in NERV. Although it would be possible to attribute the mechanical compression to technical limitations or typographic ignorance, its ubiquitous occurrence did evoke haste and, at times, despair—an emotional motif perfectly suited to a postapocalyptic story with existentialist themes.

License: All Rights Reserved.

License: All Rights Reserved.

License: All Rights Reserved.

License: All Rights Reserved.

License: All Rights Reserved.

License: All Rights Reserved.

The iconic “SOUND ONLY” monoliths use outlined Chicago for the numerals and all-caps Helvetica for text.

Source: evangelion.fandom.com License: CC BY-SA.

The shadowy cabal SEELE’s logotype is probably the only occurrence of a chancery serif (Bitstream’s Cataneo) in Evangelion.

If great storytelling made Evangelion popular among anime fans, it would soon become a fin-de-siècle social phenomenon, as a series of real-life episodes unfolded in the franchise’s production process. Budget difficulties, parents’ protest against the show’s graphic imagery, and Anno’s newfound interest in Freudian psychoanalysis all pushed the closing episodes’ visual direction from mainstream to experimental, filled with abstract animation, line drawings, flashbacks, and photographs. Told completely in a stream-of-consciousness style, the final episode “ended” without revealing an actual ending to the story, generating massive controversy on the internet. Feeling betrayed, confused, and angry, some fans made anonymous death threats to Anno in the form of letters and vandalized office façades.

Having managed to cobble together a sufficient budget, Anno was compelled to remake the series in response to fan dissatisfaction with the finale, resulting in two movies: Death & Rebirth and The End of Evangelion. While the former recaps most of the TV episodes, the latter offers a genuine end to the Evangelion story. In utter contrast to the congratulatory mood of the final TV episode, The End of Evangelion is as visually arresting as it is thematically forlorn: the viewer must witness a total meltdown of NERV and the gory deaths of the main characters, culminating in humanity’s extinction, for which the protagonist is directly responsible. As if to further his revenge against disgruntled fans, Anno even incorporated photographs of some of the death-threat letters he received into the movie’s montages. Having solidified its status as visual shorthand for Evangelion, Matisse—this time in its ultra-bold (UB) weight—flooded the movies’ background art and promotional materials with even more unabashed mechanical compression. Aided by the franchise’s boosted popularity, the font CD-ROMs even briefly became sought-after collector’s items.

Source: yande.re ©1997 GAINAX／EVA製作委員会. Illustration: Sadamoto Yoshiyuki (貞本義行). License: All Rights Reserved.

Poster for Evangelion: Death & Rebirth. The English title features hand lettering that imitates ITC Avant Garde Gothic.

Source: yande.re ©1997 GAINAX／EVA製作委員会. License: All Rights Reserved.

Poster for Evangelion: The End of Evangelion.

Source: www.youtube.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Evangelion: Death & Rebirth contains an intermission that separates “Death” and “Rebirth,” featuring mechanically stretched Matisse EB and compressed Helvetica.

Source: www.youtube.com License: All Rights Reserved.

Title card for The End of Evangelion.

Source: wiki.evageeks.org License: CC BY-SA.

End credits for The End of Evangelion.

Rebuild of Evangelion and Matisse Pro EB

Convinced that Evangelion’s story should also adapt to its times, Anno decided to establish his own animation studio in 2006 so he could remake the entire series again. The result was Studio Khara (株式会社カラー) and the movie tetralogy Rebuild of Evangelion (ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版); its first installment was released a year later. While the first movie largely follows the same plot as the 1995 TV series, significant deviation started cropping up at the end of the second movie, and the third entered a completely different plot line.

The original Matisse family was produced in desktop typesetting’s nascent days, its glyphs following the popular Japanese Industrial Standards (JIS), which prescribed what characters should look like. To conform to advances in type technology over the years, Rebuild of Evangelion uses Matisse Pro EB, which Fontworks reengineered to follow the Adobe-Japan standard. The font files were also delivered in OpenType, not the original OCF format. Following a new encoding standard meant that some characters would necessarily look different, so Fontworks kept the original versions as OpenType alternates.

Source: fontworks.co.jp © Fontworks Inc. License: All Rights Reserved.

Left: the original Matisse EB used in the 1995 TV series. Right: the updated Matisse Pro EB used in Rebuild of Evangelion.

Source: fontworks.co.jp © Fontworks Inc. License: All Rights Reserved.

Alternate glyphs can be accessed via Adobe Illustrator’s Glyphs panel.

Source: fontworks.co.jp © Fontworks Inc. License: All Rights Reserved.

Fontworks was officially credited as the font vendor in Evangelion 2.0’s end credits. (Fontworks appears just above HP.)

In both Japanese and English versions, mechanical compression officially became a celebrated identity element, used to produce a starker and more austere look for the films. The decision to use mechanical compression instead of commissioning a compressed-width variant is also confirmed by Evangelion’s official website, which loads the normal Matisse Pro EB and then uses the CSS transform property to achieve the compression effect.

License: All Rights Reserved.

Japanese title card for Evangelion 1.11: You Are (Not) Alone.

License: All Rights Reserved.

English title card.

Source: hdymly.com ©カラー／Project Eva. Illustration: Sadamoto Yoshiyuki (貞本義行). License: All Rights Reserved.

Key art for Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone.

License: All Rights Reserved.

Japanese title card for Evangelion 2.22: You Can (Not) Advance.

License: All Rights Reserved.

English title card.

Source: images4.wikia.nocookie.net ©カラー／Project Eva. Illustration: Kazuya Tsurumaki (鶴巻和哉). License: All Rights Reserved.

Key poster for Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance.

License: All Rights Reserved.

Japanese title card for Evangelion 3.33: You Can (Not) Redo.

License: All Rights Reserved.

English title card.

Source: evangelion.fandom.com ©カラー／Project Eva. Illustration: Sadamoto Yoshiyuki (貞本義行). License: All Rights Reserved.

Key art for Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo.

Matisse’s Latin counterparts received a facelift, too. Neue Helvetica now complements Matisse on the movies’ user interfaces, sometimes sporting its condensed variant.

License: All Rights Reserved.

Matisse Pro EB set alongside Neue Helvetica in regular and condensed widths. The middle image additionally features Eurostile Extended.

As the youngest typeface category, sans serifs have come to be associated with scientific and technological advancement. For example, Akzidenz-Grotesk often appears on Braun products under Dieter Rams’s direction, and Futura was chosen to represent humanity on the moon. Their unadorned letterforms conveyed the precision, progress, and optimism characteristic of mid-century modernism. Evangelion’s incorporation of Futura, Helvetica, and Eurostile in its visual world-building (especially when used for decorating Tokyo-3 and NERV) serves the opposite purpose, however. A last gasp after two presumably destroyed Tokyos, Tokyo-3 is a fortified underground city built to withstand giant monster attacks, its aboveground portion serving directly as a combat zone. Here, civic life gives way to heavy militarization. Civilization is on the brink of collapse, and humanity teeters on the edge of extinction. Futura and Eurostile do appear on objects in Evangelion that are as sophisticated and enormous as NASA rockets in real life—but while space exploration looks to the future with unending aspiration, Evangelion uses these typefaces to document the past and all of its unhealable trauma. In other words, the fact that typefaces like Eurostile and Futura are used in Evangelion as high-modernist signals offers an entry to a profound reflection on the collective human endeavor known as modernism by alluding to a world in which such endeavors were pushed to the limit, having already failed.

License: All Rights Reserved.

“VCCIFSS” set in Futura.

License: All Rights Reserved.

“RESCUE NERV” set in Eurostile.

License: All Rights Reserved.

“6th ANGEL: A.T. Field; extended” set in Helvetica; “Realtime Data Feed” set in Futura.

License: All Rights Reserved.

“R-08” set in Eurostile, including a stenciled version.

License: All Rights Reserved.

“KUROSHIO” set in Futura. The Kuroshio corporation appears wherever a logo is needed in Rebuild of Evangelion, from beer to books to military equipment. The name “Kuroshio” refers to the 1969 animated movie Flying Phantom Ship, whose key animation and design work were carried out by Anno’s former boss, Hayao Miyazaki.

License: All Rights Reserved.

The KUROSHIO logo set in Eurostile.

Evangelion and Matisse EB in the physical world

Since 2007, Anno has released three of the four planned Rebuild of Evangelion films, and the series has become a worldwide phenomenon. Capitalizing on its almost unparalleled cultural impact, Evangelion has spawned a huge official merchandise business, including electronics accessories, apparel, food, and even outdoor gear. Evangelion merch can also afford to reference a plethora of deeply embedded visual elements without showing entire drawings or scenes for context, the way many other anime need to do. Occupying center stage in these visual references, Matisse Pro EB has earned a couple of fond nicknames: “EVA Ultra Bold Mincho” or “EVA Ultra Bold Serif” (EVA 極太明朝体).

Source: www.theverge.com © 2019 Vox Media, Inc. License: All Rights Reserved.

Sharp’s SH-06D mobile phone: NERV special edition, as it appeared in the Verge.

Source: www.radio-eva.jp © 2019 RADIO EVA Online Store. License: All Rights Reserved.

Men’s shirt from Radio EVA, Evangelion’s official fashion label. The fact that “Summer” is the only season not crossed out is an oblique reference to the earth having stopped spinning in the series, leaving Tokyo-3 in a permanent summer. The detail on the right shows Futura.

Source: route2015.evastore.jp ©khara ©khara/Project Eva. License: All Rights Reserved.

The now-famous title-card T-shirts.

License: All Rights Reserved.

The title cards’ iconic look is strong enough to stand alone as subway ads.

Source: fontworks.co.jp © Fontworks Inc. License: All Rights Reserved.

Assorted Evangelion CD and DVD packaging featuring Matisse EB.

Peiran Tan. License: CC BY-SA.

Although seldom appearing in the actual movies, ITC Avant Garde Gothic can be seen in some promotional materials, such as this special booklet accompanying the theatrical release of Evangelion 3.0. It is also the Latin typeface for Radio EVA’s identity.

Source: www.blu-ray.com © 2002-2019 Blu-ray.com. License: All Rights Reserved.

Packaging for Evangelion 1.11 Blu-ray Discs. The English subtitle is set in all-caps Gill Sans.

Source: www.crunchyroll.com ©カラー. License: All Rights Reserved.

Cross-merchandising between Evangelion and Schick Razor.

Source: www.crunchyroll.com © Mynavi Corporation. License: All Rights Reserved.

Cross-merchandising between Evangelion 3.0 and UCC Coffee.

Fans also use the Matisse fonts to express their affection, referencing Evangelion in unexpected places like self-storage lockers.

Source: www.facebook.com 陈建铭 (Jianming Chen). License: All Rights Reserved.

Public storage lockers at Sotokanda, Chiyoda City, Tokyo, decorated in the style of Evangelion title cards, with the text switched out.

Source: www.evastore.jp 新世紀エヴァンゲリオン © カラー/Project Eva; 新世紀エヴァンゲリオン劇場版 © 1997カラー/EVA製作委員会; ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版 © カラー; © Fontworks Inc. License: All Rights Reserved.

Promoting Matisse EB as the “official font of Evangelion,” Fontworks also sells a special disc package containing the two versions of Matisse EB alongside a complimentary booklet. Note that Fontworks does not authorize this version of Matisse EB for commercial use—fan art only!

The fourth and final installment of Rebuild of Evangelion will land in theaters in the summer of 2020, to coincide with the Tokyo Olympics. A ten-minute teaser has already been released in Paris, Los Angeles, Shanghai, and various locations in Japan.

Source: www.instagram.com ©カラー. License: All Rights Reserved.

Director Hideaki Anno’s personal copy of the new movie script.

Source: evangelion.co.jp ©カラー. License: All Rights Reserved.

Japanese version of the teaser poster, featuring mechanically compressed Matisse EB.

Source: evangelion.co.jp ©カラー. License: All Rights Reserved.

English version of the teaser poster, featuring mechanically compressed Helvetica.

Source: evangelion.co.jp ©カラー. License: All Rights Reserved.

Japanese version of the key art.

Source: evangelion.co.jp ©カラー. License: All Rights Reserved.

English version of the key art.

The 1995 TV series and the two 1997 movies featured masterful direction, superb voice acting, and a form of visual storytelling that combined existentialism, Freudian psychoanalysis, teenage angst, and biblical references into a mind-boggling stew. And the series of real-life episodes that accompanied its production process made Evangelion not just a franchise, but also a historical event. For many anime fans born in the eighties and nineties, the word “Evangelion” evokes certain fond memories, as does seeing text set in mechanically compressed Matisse EB. For me personally, as a graphic designer, Evangelion epitomizes the best of both worlds: solid Japanese typography combined with a Swiss sensibility. The final installment of the Rebuild tetralogy will certainly be no exception. Before you see it, be sure to revisit the remastered classic twenty-six-episode TV series and the two 1997 movies on Netflix.

Peiran Tan is an interaction and graphic designer who obsesses over type in his spare time. He has a degree in graphic design from the University of Washington and is currently completing a master’s degree in Georgia Tech’s Human-Computer Interaction program. He would like to thank Francis Chow for shedding light on many of the technical aspects of Matisse’s production process.