Pokémon – “Gotta catch ’em all!”
Box art for the Game Boy game Pokémon Red
Pokémon’s strapline “Gotta catch ’em all”—used on the box art, posters, promotional material—is in Steve Matteson’s Andy. “Red Version”, and the text below it, is in Decotura. The Game Boy game Pokémon was originally released in Red and Blue versions, using the same typographical designs. Red and Blue were closely followed by Pokémon Yellow, using the strapline “Special Pikachu Edition” (in the English imprints) also in Andy.
The success of the Game Boy Pokémon games did a great deal to prolong the success of the Game Boy platform. Pokémon itself went on to become a brand beyond the video games, launching TV series, posters, stickers, plush toys, collectables, and movies. The same Andy/Decotura typography is used on the very many subsequent games in the franchise.
The “GAME BOY” flash used on the left is consistently applied across all the Game Boy boxes in the European market and is in Gill Sans (Bold Italic, stretched and with negative tracking). The wordmark Pokémon and The Nintendo lozenge are trademarks and custom lettering jobs, not typefaces.
Box art for Pokémon Yellow: Special Pikachu Edition.
2 Comments on “Pokémon – “Gotta catch ’em all!””
You’re very likely correct that the Pokémon wordmark is custom lettering. I’d like to add that it has been extended into a full typeface more than once. Fonts based on the Pokémon wordmark include Pokemon by Neale Davidson (2000, revised in 2015 as Ketchum), Pokémon (before 2005, apparently derived from Davidson’s digitization), and Pocket Monsters by Jackster3000 (2005).
The version name is likely Casablanca Bold Condensed, a clone of Dectora with slightly thicker letterforms. Fontendo also has documentation on the Japanese box art for Generations I and II, among other Pokemon releases: twitter.com/Fontendou/statu…