Let's go find some crystals....or something..

Hello fellow typography fans, it's another Thursday which means another wonderful look into words in the world around us.

I hope you'll permit me to fly my geek flag this week as I examine the type of Final Fantasy titles.

This image is the title screen of my favorite game of the series Final Fantasy VIII which was the second of the series to be available on the orginal Sony Playstation.  It was one of the first of the series to also include Full Motion Videos (FMVs) for scenes in the story that were computer animated.  They are not the most advanced now, but they were at the time the game was released.

Thanks to WhatTheFont.com, I was able to identify the typeface as Runic MT Condensed.  While my adventures in font identification have had me skeptical thus far, I do believe it's an exact match.  (If not it is VERY close.)

The title screen is mainly informative. It tells anyone watching the screen at the time the title of the game (In case you forgot or something).  It's meant to be pretty, but still very readable.

As far as I can tell, the title screen of every major title in the series uses this typeface.

Meijer, a midwestern original and typography example

Disclaimer: This is a make-up post for the week of March 4th. 

A bit of background: I grew up in a small town called Belding in Michigan.  The next town over (about 10 minutes away by car), is Greenville Michigan.  This is where the Meijer Superstore was born.  In Michigan there are Meijer stores all over the place.  The town I lived in was between the birthplace of the store, and another town Ionia to the south which also had a Meijer store.  Imagine my happiness when I moved to Champaign-Urbana and found that I can still shop in such a familiar store.  It's the only place I can find a few specific items that are mainly sold in my home state (Faygo soda! Granted I can only get 1 flavor in diet in a 20 oz bottle in the store's gas station...but it's more than I can get anywhere else in this state!!).  Yes, I love Meijer.  I'm weird.  I'm aware of this.

Some time in the early 2000's, Meijer underwent somewhat of a typographical makeover.  For most of my lifetime growing up in the Great Lakes State, the Meijer logo looked like this:

Their color scheme was mostly just red.  Now with the newer logo (shown above), their color scheme is a mixture of red and blue. 

About the type:
According to Whatthefont.com, the older logo is closest to Dragon TS-Bold however, the dots on the i and j are the wrong shape and the serifs on the Es are wrong.  The newer logo appears to be Linotype-tetria-black. 

How it's used:
It's the graphic identity for the store.

Where it can be seen:
In Champaign or Urbana on the store and within the store.  Also on any printed materials put out by the store.
Fun Fact: My father used to work for a company that had a contract with Meijer and used to do the land surveys for land where new stores were going to be built in the Midwest. 

Word Art - (Not the Microsoft version)

In a slight departure of the usual anaylisys of type I find when I'm out and about, I bring you something a friend shared with me on facebook today.

This is a picture called "Cat and Mouse" by Margaret Shepherd.  I found the image on Neatorama which was linked by my friend.  This image uses calligraphy to form the words cat and mouse into their respective animal forms.  It's a very neat image and I thought it should be shared.

The fonts on the bus go round and round?

It's CUMTD week here in the Typography garden! I spent most of last weekend wandering around Champaign-Urbana taking pictures of text for a project in ART 223. After taking some pictures of the text on CUMTD signs and the buses, I decided to use these pictures to study the type that the CUMTD uses. I have a few different examples.

This particular type I couldn't identify with either identifont or what the font. The closest I could get was Etelka Wide Text Pro Bold Italic, but the lowercase m and a are all wrong. This is the type that's used on most all the current buses for identifying it as the Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District.

Though, my husband brought it to my attention that this was not always the type for this. On the older buses, if you happen to spot one, there is a strange script font. My husband spied on earlier this week and managed to snap a picture with his iphone, so the quality isn't that great.

I tried to use What the Font on this one, but I came up goose-egg.

This type is used on most of the schedule signage and on the schedule books. According to What The Font, It appears to be Meta Book LF-Roman.

I'm not sure if this is the same as the type on the buses. I compare the images in Photoshop and it seems that they could be the same. Imagine my surprise when I ran this particular picture through What The Font and I managed to get a match! Handel Gothic Regular.

About the Usage:
It's used to provide route information and to identify the transit system's vehicles.

Where I saw it:
Well you can see CUMTD buses all over the area, but these pictures were taken mostly at the Lincoln Square Courthouse stop.

My favorite band

The Font:
According to What The Font, The font is closest to this one is Jean Splice Lorite.It's close in that it has a lot of the same letter shapes and strokes (as can be seen in the V) but it's not the same.  I find myself wondering if it were somehow specially designed for the band.

About the usage:
It's a fancy display type used for the band and album name.  Given that Evanescence is a sort of Goth Metal-ish band it is an appropriate type.  I think it's pretty, but it's not good for a lot of text.  From the album art that I have, it's been used on pretty much all of their studio albums.

Where I saw it:
I own 3 of their studio albums, (Fallen, Anywhere But Home (the one pictured) and The Open Door.) I was running out of ideas and cleaning up the office when I decided to go with this.  Maybe I'll do more musical artist typeface research, it's something that seems interesting to me.

Week 4 - Paul Rand

In the process of looking up images for a project in my ART 223 class, I came across a graphic designer named Paul Rand.  I found a few images that I thought were intreguing, but this one is one that stood out to me. 

The different letter designs and colors seem to emulate a sense of playfulness.  I believe that this is used as an advertisement for an IBM event of some kind.  I found this image in the ArtStor database. 

Week 2 - Typography in the word - On the road

The Font:
According to What The Font, The font is closest to Interstate Bold. The actual font is not one you can purchase, as it was commissioned specifically for Interstate signs and I couldn't find more information than that.

About the usage:
Obviously, this is used to communicate information about location, direction, and the road itself. White lettering on green backgrounds. Most signs now are also made of reflective material, so that they are easier seen at night. I've always wondered about fonts that you see every day, but you never really think about.

Where I saw it:
This particular example kind of speaks for itself doesn't it? Okay, maybe not. I was on westbound I-74. Obviously I was not driving. :P