Christine Polish movie poster
Polish poster for John Carpenter’s Christine, the 1983 horror film adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the same name. Designer Jakub Erol drew some fabulous fangs for Christine (the jealous, possessive car kills by means other than biting, but who cares?).
The typography is interesting, too. To understand why University Roman Bold (Letraset, 1977) was chosen, it pays off to take a look at the wordmark that was used on the original US poster (shown below) and also in the movie itself, see Nick’s post about the titles.
Erol apparently aimed to approximate this piece of lettering, and University Roman ticks several boxes: it’s serifed and has about the right weight. Its C is round and wide, with a serif at the top but none at the bottom. R has a low waistline. And although the S doesn’t descend, it comes pretty close with its curling bottom part. The only crucial detail that the font didn’t offer is the round “uncial” E. No problem for a skilled Letraset wrangler: the designer simply repurposed a C and added the middle bar from an E – voilà!
Detail from the US one sheet advance poster for Christine. The title is custom drawn, in red serifed caps with a black outline and a heavier white contour. The descending swash forms for C, S, E feature pointed terminals. Other text is set in squeezed Albertus. The poster designer and lettering artist is unknown to me.
The other text was composed from rubdown type as well: “horror amerykański” is in a Letragraphica original, Colin Brignall’s Premier Shaded. And the line below the title in Times New Roman exhibit the typical signs of small-scale transfer lettering: unruly baseline alignment and occassionally blemished glyphs (see the G in “Gordon”)
Erol didn’t vertically center the bar in E, as in the movie logo. He deliberately positioned it higher, so that it aligns with the bar in University Roman’s H.
