Mark Simonson's Notebook - Page 50
Quite a few people have written me to ask about the type in The Royal Tenenbaums (2001). The type isn’t anachronistic so much as idiosyncratic. Director Wes Anderson seems to have a thing, bordering on obsession, for Futura. The credits are set in Futura Bold—nothing strange about that. But it doesn’t stop there. The Tenenbaums seem to exist in a world dominated by Futura (mainly Futura Bold):
On buses:
At the hospital:
More buses (slanted this time):
For a cruise line (notice it’s called Royal Arctic):
At the museum (Medium weight instead of Bold):
On posters (Margot Tenenbaum seems to favor Medium):
Yet, as much as Futura is used in the movie, a few other typefaces make their appearances. Interestingly, it is usually in connection to someone or something outside the Tenenbaum family and is usually Helvetica:
On Raleigh St. Clair’s books:
On Henry Sherman’s book:
A curious (and possibly significant) exception to this pattern is on the cover of a book supposedly written in the 1970s by Royal Tenenbaum’s wife, Etheline. The typeface is Milano, a quintessentially 1970s choice:
I give The Royal Tenenbaums five out of five stars for its use of type, not because it’s perfectly chosen for the period it depicts (though, as far as that goes, it is), but because Anderson has used type in such an integral way in the film. (I also happen to like Wes Anderson films a lot.)
Permalink
Old outboard boat motor seen in an antique store in Hixton, Wisconsin, July 29, 2004.
Vintage hand-painted sign seen in Evansville, Wisconsin on August 7, 2004. This building was in the process of being restored. It had been covered in imitation brick tar paper. Amazingly, the surface beneath is barely weathered. The building was painted silver with these large coal-black letters about two feet tall on both sides of the building. The style appears to be late nineteenth century, but it could have been later than that, especially considering the condition.
A presumably unintentional contradictory message seen on Snelling Avenue in St. Paul, August 5, 2004.
I spent last evening enjoying a talk by Scott McCloud at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. He did a similar talk there two years ago which I also attended.
McCloud is a comic book artist and writer best known for his book Understanding Comics. He talked mainly about online comics, a phenomenon he has been involved in since the beginning.
The audience was mainly hard-core comics people, so it felt a little weird for me to be there. When I was young, I read Mad magazine and wanted to be a cartoonist for a while. But I’ve only been into comic books sporadically.
McCloud’s book caught my attention a few years ago and I would put it on my short list of most inspiring and thought-provoking books. The reason is that I just like the way McCloud thinks.
He has a knack for getting beyond conventional thinking, drawing out fundamental principles and presenting them lucidly. It’s an old cliché to say someone “thinks outside the box.” In McCloud’s case, I wonder if he even remembers what the inside of the box looks like.
Anyway, it was a lot of fun. As with the last time I saw him talk, he had his family with him. And, once again, he did a dramatic reading of Monkey Town at the urging of his two young daughters (only this time he didn’t blow out any of the speakers in the auditorium). And I got him to sign my copy of Understanding Comics. Pretty cool.