Brain Damage movie logo and posters
From Wikipedia:
Brain Damage is a 1988 American comedy horror film written and directed by Frank Henenlotter. It stars Rick Hearst in his debut acting role as Brian, a young man who becomes acquainted with a talking parasite known as Aylmer (voiced by John Zacherle) that injects him with an addictive fluid that causes euphoric hallucinations; in return, Aylmer demands that Brian allow him to feed on the brains of other humans.
The movie logo in red animated caps with irregular counters is based on a typeface that was almost thirty years old at that point: it’s the boldest weight of Safari, released around 1960 by Headliners. In 1963, the Medium weight was used on the cover of Where the Wild Things Are.
Movie poster with a 1986 copyright notice. The wide sans used for the tagline “Inside everyone’s head lurks an Elmer” and the credit was identified as Antique Olive large, see the comments.
Movie poster by Manson International, featuring Rockwell Bold in all caps for secondary type including the tagline “Now you’re really out of your mind.”
Arrow Video Blu-ray cover
Small type is in Helvetica Black.
5 Comments on “Brain Damage movie logo and posters”
Maybe they used a lighter weight of Antique Olive and slightly widened it for the credits?
I think the wide font on the first poster is actuallly Phil Martin’s Oliver.
The tagline and the small text on the poster appears to be a wider style of Exoffcon’s Antique Olive, called large or alternatively Antique Olive Extended. It happens to be that Berthold once digitized this style in 1993 according to the font’s metadata.
Thank you all for your comments! Jay has nailed it; it’s indeed Antique Olive large, added to Excoffon’s family in 1969. I don’t think this wide style has come up on Fonts In Use before.
Oliver isn’t too far off either. As its name hints at, this design take clues from Antique Olive. It’s not quite as wide, and also exhibits some differences in the details.
Below is a visual comparison. (The glyph set for Oliver is taken from a PANOSE book. The red circles mark details that are relevant to that classification system.)
The Extended width isn’t included in the digital versions by Linotype and URW, nor in Bitstream’s Incised 901. Berthold’s 1990s digitization can no longer be licensed. For folks looking for something similar that’s available in digital form, have a look at Sculpin (Process, 2021).