Now this is what you call pedantry
Posted by David Hepworth on 9 October 2008 - 6:21am.
Here's one for any graphic designers who are fans of "Mad Men". Terrific analysis of the type faces used in the show finds that most of the retro fonts weren't invented until ten years after the events depicted in the action.
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Good points
I remember watching Almost Famous and being particularly annoyed when a character dug out the Simon and Garfunkel album Bookends and played 'America'. It started cleanly. There was no fade in from the first track, as it appears on the album. Curses, I thought. They must have been playing it from a Greatest Hits album. Don't quote me on this, but I seem to remember the scene taking place in the late '60s, and it also involving a copy of Joni Mitchell's Blue, not released until 1971.
I've not yet seen Mad Men and I'm not a graphic designer, but as a pedant I can relate to this.
Really?
I mean, I'm a bit of a pedant myself, and misuse of apostrophes should carry a prison sentence as far as I'm concerned (I'm now going to have to rigorously check my own post now), but this is just needing to get out a bit more.
I agree with Lucas above that in films, continuity is very important and researchers should do their job properly. I'd never noticed those errors in Almost Famous, but then again, I was born in the 1980s, so I probably wouldn't.
I recognise that this is the forum of a magazine, so things such as typeface and font are fairly important, but to write a fairly lengthy article on that subject is... well, he won't be getting an invite to mine on New Year's Eve.
If fonts aren't your thing
I wouldn't watch this documentary.
I think this sort of analysis is interesting and fun partiuclarly when a series sells it's self on authenticity.
OK
I won't! (although I'm sure some of my pastimes and interests seem a bit on the dull side to others - each to their own and all that)
In that man's defence
Since "Mad Men" is a show that trades on its ability to transport its audience to a world most of them are too young to have experienced at first hand, I think he makes some very valid points about "retro" being one thing and the past entirely another. The media has developed a shorthand about the past that simply doesn't stand up to scrutiny. And believe me there are many people who can discuss fonts at some length. I'm not usually one of them but I was very impressed that anyone should pursue a tiny point so lovingly. And it wasn't on this site. Wish it was.
Retro vs History
Is this not just an instance of a much larger phenomenon? I mean, we often watch films and TV shows as a way of escapism, and Hollywood always softens the edges. People have selective memory about "the good old days" and the brain automatically and conveniently filters the rubbish out.
The media shorthand you quote is why people will say music was better in the 60s and there wasn't any rubbish like their is today, whereas there was great and rubbish music in the 60s, in exactly the same way there is today.
Apologies for going slightly off-topic there!
When in Rome
To typographers slip-ups like that are as much of an affront to their sensibilities as finding that a supposed recreation of Sixties soul was full of Yammy DX7s and reverb-drenched Linn drums would be to ours here.
Loved it. Typeface is the
Loved it. Typeface is the architecture of the written word -something we encounter numerous times in our daily lives but probably don't consciously consider until someone like Mark Simonson points it out to us.
"Now this is what you call pedantry"
No it isn't. This is.
never mind all that
nice to see that Marti Noxon is still associated with quality Telly; she was producer of Buffy too.
ahh....
the days before Comic Sans