Culture

This font is the secret to making sci-fi films look futuristic

Add some italics, cut off those sharp edges and cut out an entirely arbitrary segment of text. Voilà! You've created sci-fi

Which typeface do you use to make something look futuristic? For software engineer Dave Addey, the answer is easy: Eurostile Bold Extended.

In 2014, Addey set up Typeset in the Future, a blog that explores typography and design in sci-fi movies. It all began with Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey. This, he explains, was the first sci-film to use Eurostile Bold Extended – a crisp, sans-serif typeface – on a spacecraft user interface. He decided to dig in further, writing a detailed, 5,000-word blog about the film’s typography and its implications for the world Kubrick had created.

It took off. “To my surprise and amazement, other people found it interesting,” he says. “My server crashed and, $1,200 of internet bandwidth overage fees later, I realised I might be on to something.” Four years later, he has turned Typeset in the Future into a book, which features a typographic analysis of seven genre-defining classics: 2001: A Space Odyssey, Star Trek, Alien, Blade Runner, Total Recall, WALL•E and Moon. Eurostile Bold Extended is a recurrent trope.

Addey believes there is more to a typeface than looking futuristic. “Convincing, internally-consistent design is essential for sci-fi movies,” he says. “You're building a world that doesn't exist yet, so everything has to be thought through.” For this reason, WALL•E was his favourite of the films he focused on. “Pixar movies are unique in that every single thing you see on screen is there deliberately,” he says. “Every pixel has been hand-crafted.”

And yes, it features a few sightings of Eurostile Bold Extended, too.

Seven steps to a futuristic typeface

  1. Start with signature sci-fi font Eurostile Bold Extended (This is the classic, but most sans-serif fonts will do)
  2. Add an italic, forward-facing slant. The word wants to reach 2067 as soon as possible
  3. Curve off some of those sharp edges – the future is smooth
  4. But not too smooth – add some “consummate Vs” (tapered points) to sharpen a few letter-ends into blades
  5. Some of these letters want to touch. Let them
  6. Remove an entirely arbitrary segment of text, partial strikethrough-style
  7. Add a steel-brushed metal effect, emboss that bad boy and you’re nearly there
  8. And finally, don’t forget to put a starfield in the background.

This article was originally published by WIRED UK