Pronunciation ChallengeHow one typeface took over movie posters

In 1989, designer Carol Twombly adapted inscriptions from Roman emperor Trajan's column into a digital typeface.

Thanks, Ken. Have a nice day, everyone.

[Transcript]

Hey folks, Ken here. If you love movies as much as I do, then you’d enjoy today’s episode. When we watch movies, especially during the trailers, the titles come in different types of styles which are called typefaces and fonts. For example, imagine the titles in the Avenger movie trailers compared with the titles from Shrek movie trailers, pretty different right? Fonts are selected individually for each movie to match and represent the style of the film. However, among all movies, there’s one particular font that has been the most popular, that is the Trajan typeface.

You can see Trajan in the Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Double Jeopardy, Letters from Iwo Jima, and a lot of other movies, it’s basically everywhere. So, how did that happen? Why is Trajan used in so many movies? Yves Peters is a graphic designer who has specialized in typography since 2006. He scanned through tens of thousands of posters and noticed that the use of Trajan rose significantly in the last couple of decades.

But why? In 1989, designer Carol Twombly adapted inscriptions from the Roman emperor Trajan's column into a digital typeface. The typeface was made for Adobe, so it was a part of the software that a lot of people use to make posters, and then it gradually appeared in movies. It's originally used for epic movies, movies about people that overcome difficulties, like the big war epics and so on, but then it slowly became a standard movie font. Eventually, Trajan was overused because people wanted to produce posters quickly, and a lot of B-Rated movies also used Trajan to make it look good.

The rise and fall of Trajan illustrate the downside of a digital typeface. The convenience of swapping fonts is a huge shift from the old movie poster days when hand-painted typefaces or "lettering" was an art that was specific to each movie. These visual clichés make it possible to communicate tone and plot details to an audience very efficiently, which works just like a sudden reflex or an intuition.

Folks, what are your favorite movies? See if you can find the typical typefaces for your favorite movie genres, leave a comment down below and let me know.


[Sentence of the Day]

In 1989, designer Carol Twombly adapted inscriptions from Roman emperor Trajan's column into a digital typeface.

[Vocabulary]

1. adapt
to change something to suit different conditions or uses

Ex: David is busy adapting J.K. Rowling's latest novel for television.

2. inscription
words that are written or cut in something

Ex: The inscriptions on the gravestones were worn away.

3. typeface
letters and numbers in a particular design, used in printing or on a computer screen

Ex: The commonly seen Times New Roman font belongs to the serif typeface.


Alright, that’s all the time we have for today.
Nowadays we type more than we write.
So, it’s a talent for those who have beautiful handwriting.
Perhaps, in the midst of the pandemic.
You can find some time to practice your handwriting skills.
Which is also a time-killing hobby free of charge.

This is Ken Miao and I’ll see you guys again next week. Bye!