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Monday, December 20, 2010
Art / ??!! What is the "Witch House Font?"
Posted by Jason Baxter on Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 1:12 PM
Looking back on 2010, there's at least one big-in-'10 genre that's more or less impossible to ignore: Witch House. It has its fair share of defenders and detractors, but in my estimation, it's not especially different from any other genre, i.e. there's plenty of gold and plenty of shit, too.
Besides having a very distinct sonic identity, Witch House bands have proven to possess a remarkably unified aesthetic, perhaps the strongest or most apparent of any buzzed 2k10 genre. It faces little competition: I'll admit Chillwave's iconography is starting to feel pretty, ah, "warmed" over (but the Triangle Conspiracy is still going strong).
While there's no shortage of sans-serif font art on witchy album art and gig posters, I kept doing double-takes every time I saw this particular serif font used again and again. I'm going to resist making a sweeping, Didion-esque generalization about the preponderance of this typeface (or incredibly similar typefaces), but included below and after the jump are some prime (potentially NSFW) examples of the trend. Hey, anything's better than more cross iconography and obfuscating eyesore glyph-ization.
What is this font, anyway? Anyway graphic design students want to fill me in? I know it's not this.
3
The font for "The Present Moment" is most definitely Trajan. The "Dream Boat" and "Mater Suspiria Vision" fonts are both different from Trajan and from each other. Don't have my font reference guide with me, so can't really fathom a guess on the other two, but the "Dream Boat" one appears to be a cheapo font supplied with Microsoft Word or something like that. I do like some of the witch house stuff, particularly Balam Acab, but the wholesale usage of what is apparently unlicensed imagery in a lot of band's promos is kind of lame. Rather than regurgitate a bunch of Alejandro Jodorowski or Maya Deren (or similar) film snippets, why not hire a new talent to create something unique and interesting (I'm looking at you Mater Suspiria Vision!)?
4
"The Present Moment" typeface is kind of similar to Requiem by Hoefler & Frere-Jones, but it's not exactly that. They're very much renaissance letterforms, though, the kind of humanist faces that were common in the 16th century. It looks like the designer of the album cover may have deconstructed it a bit, lopping off serifs here and there, but that may also be a font pre-built that way.
"Dream Boat" is a Bodoni, which refers to a wide range of typefaces that all follow a kind of form based on a historical original -- the "R" is the key giveaway. Bodoni's trademark typeface came around the late 1700s.
The "Mater Suspiria Vision" is just plain old Times New Roman (the digitized version we all have on PCs, that is).
I think the theme you're picking up on is this throwback to very old-fashioned type, probably picked because it has that sense of romanticism and old-world seduction. All of them are very inorganic, though, with clean vector outlines and wonky spacing -- you can clearly see the hand of the computer at work. I don't know if this is intentional or if they're just designed by not-so-good designers, but I'd veer towards the latter.
"Dream Boat" is a Bodoni, which refers to a wide range of typefaces that all follow a kind of form based on a historical original -- the "R" is the key giveaway. Bodoni's trademark typeface came around the late 1700s.
The "Mater Suspiria Vision" is just plain old Times New Roman (the digitized version we all have on PCs, that is).
I think the theme you're picking up on is this throwback to very old-fashioned type, probably picked because it has that sense of romanticism and old-world seduction. All of them are very inorganic, though, with clean vector outlines and wonky spacing -- you can clearly see the hand of the computer at work. I don't know if this is intentional or if they're just designed by not-so-good designers, but I'd veer towards the latter.
5
Lulz in Trajan:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/trajanfilmp…
Using Trajan basically means you are designing the cover to a straight to DVD horror movie and you don't have any good ideas. Using Trajan for a "album" cover means you are designing the cover for a straight to MP3 witch house band and you don't have any good ideas.
http://www.flickr.com/groups/trajanfilmp…
Using Trajan basically means you are designing the cover to a straight to DVD horror movie and you don't have any good ideas. Using Trajan for a "album" cover means you are designing the cover for a straight to MP3 witch house band and you don't have any good ideas.
8
Not to be a total douche, but the "Dream Boat" font is not a Bodoni family font. Similar, yes, but Bodoni has a much thicker body and more rounded shapes. Though I'm pretty sure you're right about the Times New Roman. I set just about every term paper in that font back in the day. I'm just glad the days when every slightly progressive electronic band set their type in Template Gothic is over! :-P
9
@8: It's "a Bodoni," not "Bodoni." There is no one Bodoni, it just refers to a wide range of "cuts" (drawings of a small group of historical models) that have been redrawn in a wide range of ways over the last few hundred years. There are Bodonis with more "dazzle" and Bodonis with more even shapes. You can take a look here to see a wide variety of Bodoni fonts that are available -- and this is just a small sampling -- http://fontshop.com/search/?q=bodoni&x=0…
10
@311 TruthMovement: You're right that Bodoni has various weights and styles. Maybe my explanation of why I didn't agree with your assessment sounded too vague, but I know my Bodonis (I have worked as a designer for over 15 years). It just didn't have enough Bodoni-ness in my eyes to match. And it turns out I was right. The font is actually Utopia.
11
I'm with @8 that it's not Bodoni. One of the key characteristics of a Bodoni is the right angle serifs. This face has a degree of angle or filleting on the serifs. Also the flat-top on the A is a key. Don't know what it actually is, could be Utopia. So many of those faces are nearly identical with just subtle variations.
12
Here's a link to a higher resolution version of the Dream Boat logo. From this source, it's clear that the font is Utopia, or a copycat version.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_b82K1cBLDgQ/TQ…
Now go to this page:
http://www.fonts.com/FindFonts/detail.ht…
and click the "Try Font" tab. Then type "DREAM BOAT" into the box. In the image sample, all the letters match.
I know, I'm an obsessive compulsive font nerd with an irrational need to be right! ;-) No offense, though, I liked your analysis of the "old-fashioned" aspect of these fonts. Utopia is in the style of the "transitional or baroque" serif typefaces that first appeared in the mid-18th century (according to Wikipedia), which include Times New Roman, so there's a connection right there between them.
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_b82K1cBLDgQ/TQ…
Now go to this page:
http://www.fonts.com/FindFonts/detail.ht…
and click the "Try Font" tab. Then type "DREAM BOAT" into the box. In the image sample, all the letters match.
I know, I'm an obsessive compulsive font nerd with an irrational need to be right! ;-) No offense, though, I liked your analysis of the "old-fashioned" aspect of these fonts. Utopia is in the style of the "transitional or baroque" serif typefaces that first appeared in the mid-18th century (according to Wikipedia), which include Times New Roman, so there's a connection right there between them.
13
This time with tinyurl links that won't get cut off:
Here's a link to a higher resolution version of the Dream Boat logo. From this source, it's clear that the font is Utopia, or a copycat version.
http://tinyurl.com/2esy7ro
Now go to this page:
http://tinyurl.com/29sfes7
and click the "Try Font" tab. Then type "DREAM BOAT" into the box. In the image sample, all the letters match.
I know, I'm an obsessive compulsive font nerd with an irrational need to be right! ;-) No offense, though, I liked your analysis of the "old-fashioned" aspect of these fonts. Utopia is in the style of the "transitional or baroque" serif typefaces that first appeared in the mid-18th century (according to Wikipedia), which include Times New Roman, so there's a connection right there between them.
Here's a link to a higher resolution version of the Dream Boat logo. From this source, it's clear that the font is Utopia, or a copycat version.
http://tinyurl.com/2esy7ro
Now go to this page:
http://tinyurl.com/29sfes7
and click the "Try Font" tab. Then type "DREAM BOAT" into the box. In the image sample, all the letters match.
I know, I'm an obsessive compulsive font nerd with an irrational need to be right! ;-) No offense, though, I liked your analysis of the "old-fashioned" aspect of these fonts. Utopia is in the style of the "transitional or baroque" serif typefaces that first appeared in the mid-18th century (according to Wikipedia), which include Times New Roman, so there's a connection right there between them.
14
Oh, and just to beat the dead horse a bit more for fellow font nerds, Trajan was based on Latin letter carvings at the base of Trajan's Column in Rome (completed in 113 A.D.).
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