The labels that Opta designed for Compass Brewery have finally made it into production on the first trial batch. An IPA is coming soon...
Cover design for STM 1
Typeface: FF DIN.
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Metal type makes an impression
Saw the trailer for Sherlock Holmes (directed by the mockney geezer himself Guy Ritchie) and liked what I saw; well the bit that I liked the most was seeing the title set in hot metal. As for ‘the action’, well... let’s just leave that aside for the moment.
Now Holmes himself would no doubt be the first to point out that the letters would actually be in reverse if they were seen as real metal type in situ. And some part of me thinks that it might have actually suited the film better to do just that – show them in reverse – and let the viewer do their own small bit of detective work to figure out what’s being shown to them. OK, OK. Impractical I know, and there’s no way the studio would let that happen. But still...
This reminded me of an exibition design OptaDesign was asked to put together for Cambridge University Library. We faced a similar ‘type of choice’ when we’d agreed on the concept to photograph the name of the exhibition set in a form that we’d use on the promotional material. In the end we decided that a ‘quick flip’ in Photoshop would allow us not to have to repeat the title.
Back to the movie. I can’t help but think it would have been super-cool to get Alan Kitching involved in the credits (and/or movie poster); using wood type with lots of overprints, rather than the fake metal Photoshop effect for the film – which looks way too clean for my liking. Just look at the atmospheric feel printing the furniture gives on many of Kitching’s works.
I think the studio missed a trick there. I’ve been in a poster buying mood recently, and a limited edition Holmes poster would certainly have been on my shopping list. Oh well. Perhaps not so ‘Elementary my dear Watson’; as Holmes (apparently) never said.
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- When the work – or the conversation or any other human activity – is going well, then you forget what time it is and whatever else you should be doing. There is some quality in artifacts that is like this process. It’s not that the thing is transparent. On the contrary, it presents itself to you in a very immediate and unavoidable way. It seems inevitable. It isn’t expressive except of its own content. Robin Kinross
