Sir,
I had the pleasure of viewing your latest film, Avatar, this past weekend. While I was content to wait for Avatar to be released on DVD, The Scotsman was desperate to see it and I figured what the hell. I have to tell you James: I liked the movie a great deal. I had assumed the film was going to be an empty vehicle for special effects and CGI, but the story – while predictable at points – had quite a lot of substance and gravitas that I was not expecting. Bravo.
And while I'm giving out kudos, allow me to talk about those special effects and CGI: Nothing short of visually stunning. I'm so glad I got to see it on a big screen to fully enjoy the visual buffet you severed up. Amazing and spectacular.
But.
You spent millions and millions of dollars on this film. You have revolutionized the way motion capture is used and logged thousands of hours in post-production. You fully imagined a fictional world that still felt grounded and textured enough to be believable. All of this... and the best typeface you could come up with for the subtitles is Papyrus?
Seriously? FUCKING PAPYRUS.
James allow me to explain to you something that one of the 732 designers working on this movie did not: Papyrus is overused. It is the Comic Sans of the decade. Seriously. That font was over before it began. It's used by every hack wannabe designer who wants to make something look "antique," or "ancient," or in your case, "native." It's like dressing your movie up in a stunning ball gown and then accessorizing with leg warmers. Do you know how many thousands of expressive and interesting fonts and typefaces are available to you? Like what about Centaur? Or, Caslon Antique? How about LTD Pabst or Celestia? Try Fable or Galahad. Libra could look nice, or Serena. All of these typefaces are a steal at under $100. Considering your budget, you couldn't shell out $75 for something that didn't come included in your system fonts. And let's pretend you didn't have room in your budget for a new typeface: There bajillions free on the internet. In short using something as common and overused as Papyrus smacks of laziness and cheapened the whole movie for me. Every time it appeared on screen I wanted to throw popcorn at it.
Please take a typography class,
8K
I had the pleasure of viewing your latest film, Avatar, this past weekend. While I was content to wait for Avatar to be released on DVD, The Scotsman was desperate to see it and I figured what the hell. I have to tell you James: I liked the movie a great deal. I had assumed the film was going to be an empty vehicle for special effects and CGI, but the story – while predictable at points – had quite a lot of substance and gravitas that I was not expecting. Bravo.
And while I'm giving out kudos, allow me to talk about those special effects and CGI: Nothing short of visually stunning. I'm so glad I got to see it on a big screen to fully enjoy the visual buffet you severed up. Amazing and spectacular.
But.
You spent millions and millions of dollars on this film. You have revolutionized the way motion capture is used and logged thousands of hours in post-production. You fully imagined a fictional world that still felt grounded and textured enough to be believable. All of this... and the best typeface you could come up with for the subtitles is Papyrus?
Seriously? FUCKING PAPYRUS.
James allow me to explain to you something that one of the 732 designers working on this movie did not: Papyrus is overused. It is the Comic Sans of the decade. Seriously. That font was over before it began. It's used by every hack wannabe designer who wants to make something look "antique," or "ancient," or in your case, "native." It's like dressing your movie up in a stunning ball gown and then accessorizing with leg warmers. Do you know how many thousands of expressive and interesting fonts and typefaces are available to you? Like what about Centaur? Or, Caslon Antique? How about LTD Pabst or Celestia? Try Fable or Galahad. Libra could look nice, or Serena. All of these typefaces are a steal at under $100. Considering your budget, you couldn't shell out $75 for something that didn't come included in your system fonts. And let's pretend you didn't have room in your budget for a new typeface: There bajillions free on the internet. In short using something as common and overused as Papyrus smacks of laziness and cheapened the whole movie for me. Every time it appeared on screen I wanted to throw popcorn at it.
Please take a typography class,
8K
Labels: Design Dorkage, Movies
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