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Movies can serve as a medium for so many creative facets. They start from cinematography, acting, production, costumes, and more. But one highly understated art form that is an important aspect of films is the typeface it uses. Today each movie production team is coming up with a unique font style that they use across all visual elements. As a result, the movie is treated as a brand, and a complete branding style is prepared for it.
Initially, there were very standard fonts that were used for most of the movies. But in the digital era, the importance of typeface has grown exponentially. The key is that each production house wants to deliver a unique experience. Unfortunately, only a few of the fonts used in movies are available for use. Nevertheless, designers always find a way around things. Every time a good font style is used in movies, some designers recreate that. These fonts are then available on the internet for free or at a minimal cost. This blog compiles some creative fonts that movies have inspired.
1. Billionaire
The first one in the list is a highly vintage font – Billionaire. This font, along with Portia mentioned below, are classic and notable fonts inspired by movies. You pick up any good movies in the 1950s, and you would see this font style in use for billboards, posters, and other print promotions activities. The Billionaire font is a unique vintage classic san serif font. Each letter is thoughtfully designed to make the font creative. This font comes with six variations: Regular, grunge, thin and thin grunge, medium and medium grunge. This makes it easy for designers to set up a good typography combination out of the font styles.
2. Portia
Moving a decade ahead, a new genre of films evolved – film noir. Portia font style has been inspired by this genre of movies. By using this font, you can easily create a good nostalgic effect for your design. The font style is versatile and easy to use. Portia comes with four font styles – regular, display, oblique, and aged. The display style is created out of outlines making it look more artistic. The font comes for only uppercase characters but includes numerals and punctuations. It is ideal to use for creating movie posters or other designs for movies that belong to the film noir genre.
3. Futura Black
My name is Bond, James Bond! This iconic dialogue has ruled the cinemas for decades. Each installation in this film series is worth watching. The latest installation is ‘No Time To Die.’ The Bond franchises always invest heavily in the film’s creative aspects, which makes the film more interesting. For the latest film, they have used a version of Futura Black font for their movie poster. The good news is that this font is available free to download and use. So now you can also use this font and create bond-style movie posters.
4. Dragon Fire
Moving on to another superhit franchise – The Game of Thrones. This HBO-produced TV series had people hooked on to it for so many seasons. So many characters, dialogues, and art productions have become pop culture symbols now. One addition to that is the font style used. While the original font is not available for people to use, designers have created the font Dragon Fire very close to the original one. A serif display font, Dragon Fire, can be easily used for logos, headlines, or other designs which would refer to the iconic Game of Thrones franchise.
5. Capture It
The Expandables is a highly successful action film franchise. First time in the history of Hollywood, so many action heroes were brought together on the screen. The cast included Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Bruce Willis, Wesley Snipes, Harrison Ford, Antonio Banderas, Mel Gibson, Micky Rourke, and a lot more. While the movie production house has focused more on getting their action stunts right, they have kept a low profile in the font they have used. Capture It – the typeface used in the first installation of this movie is available for free download. The font is inspired by Stencil style and shouts out the military reference. This makes it ideal to use for games, movie posters, and other designs related to action or military.
6. Impossible
The whole world was highly impressed by Tom Cruise’s – Mission Impossible release. It gave the cinema lovers a well-made future-based action film. The latest technology and weapons shown in the film became the talk of the town. Since then, the franchise has delivered six movies, and Ethan Hunt will be back more for another two films by 2023. Apart from the hi-tech gadgets, the production house also came up with a unique font style for the movie. This font – Impossible, is inspired by the font style used in the first installation of Mission Impossible. The font style is strong display fonts. The unique part is the line cutting through the upper half of all the characters. You can download this font for free and use it for creating your MI-inspired designs. Of all the fonts inspired by movies, this one is most likely one of the most memorable.
7. UN’CHAINED
Quentin Tarantino has his style of making movies. His movie stands out because he takes extra interest in almost all the parts of movie production, including the production set, music, costumes, and even the font style. One of his latest hits is Django Unchained starring Leanardo Dicaprio, Christoph Waltz, and Jammie Fox. The entire film production focussed on the western cowboy style of the 1850s. To continue that flavor, Tarantino used a special font, and that has inspired this UN’CHAINED font style. It is a strong display style font and comes with 11 variations. Though they are available only for uppercase, they are a must-have for all designers who need to work on vintage western style designs.
8. Metropolis
The Metropolis font is inspired by the 1927 classic film of the same name by Fritz Lang. The film still holds a lot of cultural inspiration, which has been embedded in the font style. The designer has, however, taken the original font design and added a modern touch to it. This has resulted in the classic revival of the font in the form of an elegant and versatile serif font. The weight of the characters is optimized, and the edges are given a nice creative touch. The font style comes with over ten variations and includes 254 glyphs. This allows the designers a lot of options in using this font for websites, posters, and even corporate branding.
9. Serpentine Serif EF
Another hit-action film franchise has been the Transporter Series. Jason Statham as Frank Martin, a special operations soldier who now delivers packages with no question asked approach. There have been many installations of the film, but the first one was one of the better ones. The film production house created a special font to be used for the movie branding. Designers have recreated that font style in the form of Serpentine Serif EF. This font style is a serif-based display font. The weight of the characters is uneven, giving the font an artistic look. This font style comes with over eight variations. The movie has used an Italics version, and so you can continue with that if you want to create something that has reference to the movies.
10. Bank Gothic
Jenifer Lawrence earned her mark as an action hero with the Hunger Games series. Based on the book, this action dystopian film trilogy dealt with a survivor series competition. Once the first movie was released, the entire concept of Hunger Games became famous and resulted in the creation and promotion of the World of Hunger Games. The font Bank Gothic comes closest to the original fonts used by this franchise. By the look of it, the fonts seem simple serif-based digital fonts. This also makes the font easy to use for other applications as well. The font is free to download, comes only in uppercase but allows numbers and characters in it.
11. Dracula
The concept of Dracula needs no introduction. Time and again, a lot of movies have been made with vampire characters, but Dracula still remains one of the best ones. Dracula highly inspires this font style. The font style is serif-based, but because the width of characters is more, it can also pass on as a display style. The foundation of this font is gothic handwritten fonts, and the extended serif marks make the font look scarier. Presently the font is available in regular and italics versions for both the caps, including numbers and symbols. You can use this font every time you want to give a cultural reference to the Dracula character. Even otherwise, the font can be used for logos, posters, headers, and social media posts for gothic style designs.
12. Hitchcut
The Hitchcut font comes as a delight for all the fans of Alfred Hitchcock. A master filmmaker, Hitchcock has altered the way films are made through his genius vision, story concepts, and cinematography. This font was created by Simon Stratford as a tribute to the highly talented filmmaker. The name of the font is wordplay for Hitchcock and Cutout, as the font style resembles cutouts. All the characters seem to have been cut out with scissors from paper in a childlike manner. The font support both the upper and the lower case along with letters and symbols. An added feature is that it also provides contextual alternatives for all the characters giving designers more creative options.
13. Ice Age Movie Font
The Ice Age franchise has entertained millions of viewers for almost a decade now and given us some highly memorable characters. Though the film may have some extinct characters and plots centuries old, it teaches us important lessons of family, friendship, and positivity. The creators have paid a lot of attention to ensuring that the film has an optimistic feel. The same is reflected in its font style. It looks as if it has been carved out of an ice block. The weight of the characters is very high, and this makes it a perfect display font with a comic feel. You can download and use this font for free, but it comes only for the uppercase letters. Nevertheless, the moment you use this font, viewers will quickly understand your reference to the Ice age movie world.
14. Antique Olive Nord D
One of the highest-grossing and super hit action franchises has been the Fast and the Furious. Starting in 2001, the franchise has already delivered nine movies along with several other spin-offs. This has resulted in the creation of a spectacular brand for Hollywood. An important aspect of this brand is the use of a unique font style. It is believed that the production house has used Antique Olive Nord D for the film posters of the first installation. Though this font has changed over the years, people still relate to this font when it comes to Fast and Furious, evoking a strong connection to it’s fans. Although it’s not exactly the same, even cat lovers have found this font used on a humorous cat t-shirt called “The Fast & Curious“. This font style is free to download and comes with upper and lowercase along with numbers. But designers need to note that the font standalone may not have the impact. It is the typography composition seen in the movie posters that generate the brand recall. Nevertheless, designers can use this free font to recreate collaterals related to this film franchise.
15. Jurassic Park
From the first roar of the dinosaur to the latest not-so-great reboot of the series, Jurassic Park has captivated the audience for decades. Started in 1993 by Steven Spielberg, the film series has become synonymous with people’s knowledge about dinosaurs. However, just like the other Hollywood greats, Spielberg also likes to ensure that all creative aspects of the film are well taken care of. Hence, the production house came up with a childlike font but also had a creepy feel to it that resonates with the way dinosaurs scare people. This font style is inspired by the film and is available for free download. It contains only uppercase letters but also has special symbols that might surprise you.
As a designer, time and again, you will be asked to create designs that have a cultural reference to a classic movie. This could be in the form of a social media post, a promotional offer, or a print poster. But you will need to understand the reference and develop a design that viewers can easily relate with. Naturally, fonts play an important role in this, and hence it is advisable to add these movie-inspired fonts to your collection.
