Little Shop of Horrors film titles
Filmotype Metro in use for the opening credits of Little Shop of Horrors —
a 1986 American rock musical comedy horror film directed by Frank Oz. It is a film adaptation of the off-Broadway musical comedy of the same name by composer Alan Menken and writer Howard Ashman about a geeky florist shop worker who finds out his Venus flytrap can speak. Menken and Ashman’s Off-Broadway musical was based on the low-budget 1960 film The Little Shop of Horrors, directed by Roger Corman. The 1986 film stars Rick Moranis, Ellen Greene, Vincent Gardenia, Steve Martin, and Levi Stubbs as the voice of Audrey II. The film also featured special appearances by Jim Belushi, John Candy, Christopher Guest and Bill Murray. It was produced by David Geffen through The Geffen Company and released by Warner Bros. on December 19, 1986.
Released in the 1950s, neither Metro nor its wider sibling Portly are available digitally yet.
The end credits for the film are set in Dom (or Filmotype Aragon?).
22 Comments on “Little Shop of Horrors film titles”
Quick update: I’ve expanded this post to include info and images for the film’s end credits, and also added design attribution for Bran Ferren.
Big news, Metro/Portly is gonna be REVIVED by AlphabirdsFanatic!
www.deviantart.com/alphabir…
www.deviantart.com/alphabir…
Actually, big help by me.
Oh, specimen too!
www.flickr.com/photos/21842…
Thanks for letting us know, Otto.
Is AlphabirdsFantastic aware of the fact that Stuart Sandler acquired the trademark and assets of the Filmotype library? They might want to check with him, in order to avoid treading on anyone’s toes.
Also, generally speaking, can I recommend not to base a revival on a low-res photo with distorted letterforms?! If it’s a serious undertaking, scans can be obtained.
The typeface in the second link is Emigre’s Base Serif.
I haven’t seen the full glyph set of the Filmotype Metro font.
I’m using Filmotype Metro/Portly/Mink for the Hedgepeth Brothers Cartoons.
You notice something? I think there was a font that borrowed some of the glyphs from Metro/Portly. It’s called Johann. That font was created in the late 1990's in the United Kingdom.
This Johann? It’s similar in style, but on closer inspection, virtually none of the glyphs is a perfect match. The overall feel is quite different, especially in the lowercase with the schoolbook-like forms for agy.
Glyph sets of Filmotype Metro (top) and Johann Light (bottom)
Yes, that’s the one I was talking about. But there is also Medium and Bold, too. For the Johann font.
Wait a sec, are you the creator of Johann?
Well, maybe try comparing it with Johann Medium this time. See the difference? The R shape has changed from the Light version.
No, I’m not the creator of Johann, nor do I know who designed it. As such, we can only speculate about the designer’s intent and to what extent Johann is related to Metro.
I do see the similarities in E P R W 2 and some more. It’s conceivable that these are not coincidental. One possible explanation: the designer got their inspiration from an in-use example of Metro which featured these glyphs, and reverse-engineered the missing ones. That would explain why only a few glyphs are really close to Metro, and the rest is similar only in overall style and weight.
That’s not exactly a sign of professsional work. ;-)
It seems like you’ve made a good point. By the way, I think Johann Bold seems to have another alternate version where it uses most of the glyphs from the original Filmotype Metro/Portly Font. Here are some examples:
In the Infant version, the lowercase a and g are modified to make them single-story. However, in the original, they’re double-story. Also, the lowercase y is modified as a regular form and the uppercase I and J have no bars.
Thanks. I still see more differences than common glyphs between Metro and Johann Bold. But yes, the double-story g in Johann Bold is further indication that there is some influence from Metro.
Johann now has a page in the database. If you have evidence for a date earlier than 2008, please share so that we can add it.
That’s good. Actually, this font was created way earlier in the 1990s.
It was almost created like in 1996. Is that true or not?
Also, do you have any of those font files by any chance? I really appreciate it.
I didn’t doubt that. I just didn’t have proof for it yet. Thanks to your find, I now have! Very nice. I’ve updated the typeface page, now with a “by 1996” date.
No, I don’t have these font files. A web search will bring up copies of the Light and Medium. But you are aware of that already – it looks like you uploaded them, right?
Oh, yes. I do have the font files.
All I’m missing is Bold, and Infant.
And also, that font is actually digital, which means it was done on a font creating software. I heard it was made in Fontographer. Ever heard of that software before?
Justin, I had to remove the links to the font files from your comment. I’m sure you have no bad intentions, but since you are not the IP holder for these fonts and there is no indication that they were released under a license that allows distribution, we can’t allow such links.
Right, at least the Light and Medium were generated by Fontographer 3.5, according to the meta data. This means they were made in or after 1992.
Yeah, I’m sorry if I put in the links to the fonts. I believe it’s hard to find that font nowadays in PDFs, also it was created exclusively in the UK. Maybe it would be a good idea if we can just contact some companies from the United Kingdom and see if they have the font files.
Hey Florian, where did you borrow the glyph set of Metro?
It’s from the ≥1962 specimen that’s linked on the typeface page, with rearranged lines.