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Movies can serve as a medium for many creative facets from cinematography and acting to production and costumes. One highly understated art form that plays an important role in films is the typeface used. Designers often create fonts inspired from movies to capture the unique style and mood that these films convey. 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. 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. 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. The Portia font style, one of the popular fonts inspired from movies, draws its inspiration from this genre. Using this font, you can easily create a nostalgic effect in your design. The style is versatile and easy to use, offering four variations: regular, display, oblique, and aged. The display style features outlines, giving it a more artistic look. Although Portia includes only uppercase characters, it also has numerals and punctuation. It’s ideal for creating movie posters or other designs related 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. For the first time in Hollywood history, filmmakers brought so many action heroes 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. The 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 one of the remarkable fonts inspired from movies, drawing its design from the 1927 classic film of the same name by Fritz Lang. The font style reflects the film’s rich cultural influence. The designer has modernized the original design, resulting in an elegant and versatile serif font revival. The designer optimized the character weights and added a creative touch to the edges. With over ten variations and 254 glyphs, this font offers designers plenty of options for use in websites, posters, and 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. The release of the first movie made the entire Hunger Games concept famous and sparked 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. This font style is serif-based, but its wider characters also allow it to work as a display style. It draws its foundation from gothic handwritten fonts, and the extended serif marks give it a scarier look. 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. You can also use the font for logos, posters, headers, and social media posts in gothic-style designs.
12. Hitchcut
The Hitchcut font comes as a delight for all the fans of Alfred Hitchcock. Master filmmaker Hitchcock changed the way films are made through his genius vision, story concepts, and cinematography. Simon Stratford created this font 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. Its font style reflects this, looking as if someone carved it 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. People believe the production house 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.
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, like other Hollywood greats, Spielberg also ensures that he takes care of all creative aspects of the film. 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. The film inspired this font style, and you can download it for free. It contains only uppercase letters but also has special symbols that might surprise you.
As a designer, time and again you’ll be asked to create designs that reference classic movies. Whether it’s a social media post, a promotional offer, or a print poster, understanding the cultural reference is key to making a design that viewers connect with. Naturally, fonts play an important role in this, so it’s wise to add fonts inspired from movies to your collection.
