film poster

Hi,

I'm writing to ask for a little help. I know I'm a first time poster but any pointers would be hugely helpful and much appreciated.

I've just started working for a film director. We're currently putting together the poster for a film that's just been completed and he asked me to do research into gothic fonts.

This research landed on the Sonatine font - http://www.mauvais-genres.com/4550-t...shi-kitano.jpg


This is the now the favoured direction, but I've started to come up against a brick wall looking for variants.

Unfortunately I used up all my researching options getting to Sonatine and haven't now got many idea's on where or how or what variants on the font might be out there.

I was hoping that some people with more font knowledge than me might be able to help a bit, and it really would be amazing if any one reading this might know of any other fonts a bit like Sonatine (american text) or anywhere which might be good place to start looking.

As I've been through myfonts, font shop etc looking my only real idea now is to go to book shops and look for 70/80's fiction and see if they might have any futuristic/gothic fonts which might work for the film.

So really if anyone know of any fonts like Sonatine that would incredible and thank you for taking the time to read this.


Many Thanks,

T

Hi sixblazing shot—

Here are two very useful pointers for you:

1. You're working for a film director? You'll need a graphics program to compile the poster, and it shouldn't be a bitmap editor such as Photoshop because the text needs to go to a commercial printer as vectors, not bitmaps. Happily, you're on a forum that Xara sponsors, and Xara Designer would be my logical choice for poster creation—not because I'm a shill (that I'm an evangelist or even a Moderator), but because I have created several musicals posters with Xara over the past five years and it's a piece of cake once you understand the program a little.

2. That Sonatine poster is quite repulsive, isn't it? But I see the sort of typeface you seek and although "Gothic" describes it in a Historical or Pop Culture sense, the term "Gothic" means something entirely else in typography terms. And this might be why your searches aren't paying off.

"Gothic" in type terms means the strokes that make up the letterforms are of equal width. Arial, for example, is a Gothic font.

What you are looking for is a Fraktur typeface, which probably has its origins in Gothic times in Europe, specifically Hessian/ German.

I don't own a typeface exactly like the one you seek that was used to type "Sonatine", but I can come close, not acceptably close, but close. You might want to type "Fraktur typeface" in your internet brower's search field and see what comes up.

Here is me educated guessing:

Attachment 100107

You might need to do a little customization to the font you decide upon. Often, what people believe is a typeface on a poster is either hand-lettering of modified typefaces.

My Best,

Gary

If this it the style of font you want, I put together some samples with their names. These are all free fonts, and some more ornate than others.

Attachment 100109

You might also try searching for Blackletter or Old English. If you have enough of a budget Letterhead Fonts has some beautiful fonts that may be useful to you. Be forwarned though that letterhead fonts don not license their fonts as webfonts so any artwork passed on to web designers for the film would need to be converted to vector shapes/paths.

For general information (and I'm not being snarky here!), Fraktur fonts are a subfamily member of Blackletter.

And if you want to get more than your share of "Goth" fonts, free and legal, go to Dieter Steffman's font Repository at TypeOasis Many of Steffmann's Blackletter fonts.

I suggest you go for the more legible of the fonts, because ideally, your director wants the film to be attended (!), and many of Dieter's typefaces are beautifully designed but poorly coded, with glitches along the outline, occasionally visible at large point sizes.

Which is another good reason to at least give Xara a try. You can convert the headline to editable shapes (Ctrl+Shift+S), ungroup the guys, and then apply outline smoothing and selectively correct problem areas withe the Shape tool.

My Best,

Gary

off topic for a bit. Gare does that mean that the font styles I posted may not be legal?

Quite honestly, Larry, legally, it's one of those fuzzy areas. It's probably okay, but if you asked a font vendor, they'd reflexively tell you it's not okay.

-g