[HN Gopher] Typography in Alien (2014) ___________________________________________________________________ Typography in Alien (2014) Author : tosh Score : 238 points Date : 2021-08-12 10:32 UTC (12 hours ago) (HTM) web link (typesetinthefuture.com) (TXT) w3m dump (typesetinthefuture.com) | mwaitjmp wrote: | Not sure what it is about this film, the aesthetics, story, | atmosphere, the acting? I think it's perhaps my favourite film. | The first 20 mins or so in particular are outstanding. | | I'm sure many know but the idea of having the mundane industrial | theme transferred to space was supposed to have come from a | student film called Dark Star[0]. | | Alien Isolation is also fantastic though hard to fully enjoy the | atmosphere for the most part as it's fairly terrifying. | | There was a piece on hacker news a while back where a programmer | talked through how he was asked to code up the graphics for the | landing sequence.(3D terrain wireframe). | | [0] https://lewtonbus.net/editorials/dark-star-chest-alien- | burst... | monkeycantype wrote: | Something that I love about alien is the way John Hurt's | character as the 'face into danger, get things done' soldier | resolves the problem of horror movies - why do people do these | stupid things that put them in danger? Hurt's character is | smart and professional, and doing exactly what he has been | trained to do, to put himself and his team into danger in | service of a larger agenda. He's no an idiot, he doesn't waver | near the danger, he charges straight into it. He's doing his | job, as retconned in later movies the xenomoph is valuable | asset, worthy of risking the nostromo and its crew for. | ape4 wrote: | I expect real mining spaceships and colonies will just have the | same regular fonts we use now. They're the most readable. Not | space/future fonts. | _moof wrote: | If SpaceX has anything to say about it, it'll be Lato. | cratermoon wrote: | Let's hope nothing safety-critical depends on being able to | tell the difference between the l and the I. | JoeAltmaier wrote: | I expect they will be cost-effective conglomerates of many | manufacturers, possibly refitted multiple times. They may | likely be a pastiche of decades of decisions about fonts and | styles! | otikik wrote: | The Corporation has decided that disembodied brains don't need | fonts of any kind in order to perform their required function. | mumblemumble wrote: | I didn't notice a single stereotypical space/future font in | there. Lots of Helvetica and suchlike, plus a few display | typefaces in spots where it makes sense to use a display | typeface. And, of course, a bunch of computer fonts that look | retro-futuristic now, but would have just been all they had to | work with, because that sort of styling was what you had to do | to make text legible on a vintage 1979 low DPI CRT display. | dfxm12 wrote: | Alien was made in the 70s and at the time and was set in some | time in the distant future. What fonts were _we_ using back | then? Will we be using the same fonts hundreds of years in the | future? What fonts were the people in the setting using? | | On top of that, part of the draw of sci-fi is to imagine a new, | different world. That includes different fonts. | codazoda wrote: | One thing that comes to mind is freeway sign fonts in the US. | They have recently started to change and I certainly don't | like the new ones as well as the old ones. But, maybe that's | just my human emotions avoiding change. | hyper_dynamics wrote: | Yeah sure... | | "Can you make it look more futuristic? We're building a mining | spaceship colony and it must attract the investors" | sizzzzlerz wrote: | Well, then, make sure it has an iPod interface and lots of | cup holders. | regularfry wrote: | Interestingly, there's a font designed (relatively recently) | for air traffic control use, where misreading glyphs can be | catastrophic. I tried it as a terminal font. | | It is awful. | _moof wrote: | > I tried it as a terminal font. It is awful. | | In fairness, a shell is a very different use case from a | flight deck. (You note below that this is a flight deck font, | not an ATC font.) An aircraft cockpit is mostly using type to | display small pieces of isolated information, e.g. a speed or | a list of 4-6 letter approach names, not a big wall of text | (ACARS messages notwithstanding). | regularfry wrote: | Yes, but I had initially thought that the selection | pressures would be similar enough, particularly around | disambiguation, that good for one would be good for the | other. Either that was untrue, or... they didn't do the | design particularly well. | _moof wrote: | Yup, entirely possible. I haven't used it myself. | blue1 wrote: | Can you remember the name of this font? | regularfry wrote: | I had misremembered. It's not for air traffic control, but | for aircraft cockpits. It's this: https://b612-font.com/ | | In particular I suspect that the '()' and '[]' glyphs are | far more common in source code and terminal use than in | cockpits. I found them far, far too similar. Also there's | little distinction between 'O' and '0' , and between 'I' | and '|'. Other than those problems, it's mostly fine - 'l' | and '1' are usefully distinct, for instance - but the | friction from those particular difficulties was enough to | make me hate it. | cratermoon wrote: | Trivia: B-612 is the name of the asteroid home of the | Little Prince of the eponymous story. That name is | derived from the name of the aircraft flown by author | Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Saint-Exupery was a pilot. | bryondowd wrote: | Makes sense that a cockpit wouldn't need a clear | distinction between brackets and parenthesis, or |. But I | am surprised about the similarity of 0 and O. I recall | when I went to the ATC academy they really drilled in | using a horizontal slash through zeros when hand-written. | Also had to underline the letter S in any case where it | could be ambiguous with the number 5 (as in a plane's | tail number). I think we also had to put a horizontal | strike through the letter Z to distinguish it from a 2. | _moof wrote: | Probably more important in an ATC context than a flight | deck setting. Tail numbers come to mind, as you said. | Although I could see Part 91 operators mixing up airport | identifiers with O and 0, airlines don't fly to airports | where that matters... intersections and navaids are all | alpha... approach names aren't going to have any | ambiguity... so I _guess_ one could argue it 's ok? | Still, you're right, it was a weird choice not to | disambiguate them. | | (Also, I'm super jealous you went to the ATC academy. By | the time I seriously considered it, I'd aged out.) | ourmandave wrote: | Reading that reminded me of the ending, with the slow pan on a | now sleeping Ripley. | | And the music (Sinfonia No 2 The Romantic) takes one last moment | to jump scare you with the horn (2:31 in this video). | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfyg_sE85kQ | msla wrote: | Am I the only one who finds this website hard to read? | | Low contrast, huge margins, just not legible. | coldacid wrote: | I actually bought the book some time ago, based off the strength | of this article and the one on 2001. | jdc wrote: | Man, what I wouldn't give to have Berthold City Light as my | virtual console font! | cratermoon wrote: | No way. The 0 and the O are essentially identical (with O being | slightly larger but only distinguishable next to the 0), and | the l, 1, and I are close enough to be easily confused. | bartvk wrote: | Is there someone who can point to a mono version of this font? | I tried it in iTerm but forcing a proportional font into mono | looks pretty bad. | Andrew_nenakhov wrote: | Oldie but goodie. My favourite bit is this: | | "The five minutes to destruction are _typographically | uninteresting_. Ripley makes it to the escape shuttle with no | sign of the alien. " | specproc wrote: | An oldie but a goodie. Love this piece. | causi wrote: | _That's not just a factor of ten out - it's also an entirely | different unit of measurement._ | | This is not a problem for multiple reasons. Firstly, if you work | in a mechanical field you know that machines regularly combine | metric and imperial parts. You may have to use a 3mm hex wrench | and then sixty seconds later a 3/32 hex wrench. Right now you're | using an OS that labels storage in one unit and storage devices | labeled in another, gigabytes and gibibytes. | | The second reason is even simpler: the display on the Nostromo's | computer is in-universe and the title card for the movie isn't. | The title card could label the cargo of the Nostromo as 11.7 | trillion pennyweights of ore and it wouldn't matter. | | Also I don't know why he thinks "old man" as slang for father is | British. It was in common use in the US in the 90s. | hef19898 wrote: | The only case I know of is old British cars, from before they | fully transitioned to metric. Some parts on Land Rovers, prop | shafts for example didn't for a _long_ time. | | Anyway, mixing is just bad engineering. Which shows us that bad | engineering is a thing for space craft of the future. Just why | Weyland-Yutani's logisticians would cope with this mix of units | for refinement capacity and / or payload is beyond me... | kwhitefoot wrote: | The gearbox casing on my 1965 Volvo Amazon was secured with | Whitworth bolts! I've forgotten what size. In 1980 it was | difficult to find the right ones. | PaulDavisThe1st wrote: | The bolts on the handlebar stem of one of my bikes (a Surly | Straggler) have metric threads and _SAE hex heads_. Can it | get more insane? | oriolid wrote: | There are several threads on bicycles that have metric | diameter and TPI thread pitch. Off the top of my head, at | least Italian bottom bracket and freewheel threads and | French lock ring thread are like that but I'm sure there | are more. | causi wrote: | _The only case I know of is old British cars_ | | It's fairly common in the US for machines which aren't | produced in large numbers. Specialized factory and scientific | machinery especially. I encounter it with agricultural | machinery and textile analyzers. | | _Just why Weyland-Yutani 's logisticians would cope with | this mix of units for refinement capacity and / or payload is | beyond me..._ | | ...they don't. The title card is not in-universe. To the best | of my knowledge there is no depiction of Weyland-Yutani | themselves using imperial units. | dharmab wrote: | Old Harley Davidson motorcycles used only SAE parts. Newer | ones have global suppliers and have a mix of metric and SAE. | spfzero wrote: | It was common in the US in the 70s too. | riffraff wrote: | The whole blog (and book, I suppose) is worth a read, it's just | beautiful and funny. | | Also, you will not be able to avoid recognizing eurostile in | every single evil future corp once you're done. | dcolkitt wrote: | > Furthermore, this screenshot shows that the Nostromo has a | refinement capacity of "200,000,000 tonnes", and not the | "20,000,000 tons" mentioned in the Foreshadowing Inventory. | That's not just a factor of ten out - it's also an entirely | different unit of measurement. | | "Haha. Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder." | [deleted] | spfzero wrote: | One is the capacity, the other is the load they actually were | carrying? | jayd16 wrote: | I wonder if its plot relevant. Its an empty tanker ship. You'd | risk that over a full one. | | This was also the last leg of the contract for the crew. Does | that mean that Wayland-Yutani is actually exporting more | minerals from Earth than importing? | hef19898 wrote: | Good catch! And a very nice fun fact. If so, or if that run | was a bust, I wonder why WY was pissed at Ripley for blowing | it up. Insurance money is good. | codazoda wrote: | Ahem, Waylan Yutani. :P | smcl wrote: | You're actually both mistaken. It was referred to both as | Weyland-Yutani and Weylan-Yutani (note: wEy not wAy). It's | an easy mistake to make :) | cratermoon wrote: | This article repeats the story about the loss of the Mars Climate | Orbiter because of a mix-up in units. That's not really the | story. The navigation team had figured out the problem well in | advance, and requested an additional course correction maneuver | that would have put the spacecraft back where it should have | been. Their concerns were either ignored or overruled by | management. https://spectrum.ieee.org/why-the-mars-probe-went- | off-course | | See also "A critical flaw was a _program management_ grown too | confident and too careless, even to the point of missing | opportunities to avoid the disaster. " | https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/809121 | outworlder wrote: | From the article you linked: | | > But managers demanded that worriers and doubters "prove | something was wrong," | | I have no productive words to convey my astonishment. | tantalor wrote: | Sure, wait for the thing to crater. There is your proof. | BonitaPersona wrote: | I didn't know about this website and book, so I'm glad you | decided to share it today even if it has a few years. | | Definitely recommend the whole blog, and not only this article. | | Thank you! | murat124 wrote: | I'm fascinated by the work that was put into making this | legendary movie. Is there a specific genre name given to movies | that have only a few people throughout the entirety of the movie | in a closed environment? If there was, Alien would definitely top | the list. | barrkel wrote: | It's very common in plays with small casts converted into | movies, for obvious reasons. | tillinghast wrote: | This led me to the following tangent: framing 12 Angry Men as | an MITH is an interesting thought experiment. | brnt wrote: | Its why I like Oz (series) too. There is something to be said | for understanding the boundary conditions in full. Funny thing | is that my partner hates this kind of thing :/ | psuter wrote: | "huis clos"? It's commonly used in French at least. | https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/huis_clos | pklausler wrote: | The late Blake Snyder wrote a couple of books ("Save The Cat!", | recommended) on screenwriting with the hypothesis that there | are only ten basic story paradigms, and _Alien_ is the classic | "Monster In The House" example, along with _Jaws_. | | In short, a MITH movie has our heroes trapped in a space due to | a sin not of their making, there's a monster, and at least one | character who is a wounded half-man harbinger of doom. | | Once you know the ten categories, movies become pretty | predictable after the first reel or so, so maybe you don't want | to learn them. | stnmtn wrote: | Predictable movies are always predictable, but knowing the | categories and Save the Cat structure is fun because then you | can see when truly talented people subvert it and twist those | "rules". | pklausler wrote: | The tenfold categories are also a way to rescue a bad | movie-watching experience, because you can at least debate | whether (say) _Ad Astra_ was a ROP or something else | instead of just bitching about the science violations. | codazoda wrote: | It's not _Alien_ but I think it fits in the (unknown) category | really well... Buried, with Ryan Reynolds. It 's a pretty good | flick that's filmed almost entirely in a small dark box with | only him in it. | jimmygrapes wrote: | And perhaps one of the only movies without the standard Ryan | Reynolds quips and sarcasm! (I just watched The Hitman's | Wife's Bodyguard and was a little put off by just how often | he still does this, knowing that he has acting chops that | don't necessitate it) | dragonwriter wrote: | > Is there a specific genre name given to movies that have only | a few people throughout the entirety of the movie in a closed | environment? | | I seem to recall ebcountering one that is somewhat more | specific than TV Tropes' "Closed Circle" [0] but less specific | than "Ten Little Murder Victims" [1] that fits this, but can't | put my finger on it right now. | | [0] https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ClosedCircle | | [1] | https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TenLittleMurderV... | CharlesW wrote: | > _Is there a specific genre name given to movies that have | only a few people throughout the entirety of the movie in a | closed environment?_ | | In TV this form is often referred to as a "bottle episode"[1], | and there's at least one article describing Alien as a "bottle | movie"[2]. Presumably, this was done to maximize what could be | done with its $11M (!) budget. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bottle_episode | | [2] https://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/ent/alien-disney.html | ben7799 wrote: | Michael Crichton loved writing books on this trope. | | e.x. | | Jurassic Park - Stuck on an island full of dinosaurs | | Congo - Stuck in a lost city full of deadly intelligent apes | | Sphere - Stuck in an alien ship on the bottom of the ocean | daveslash wrote: | Westworld, stuck in a theme park with a killer robot _(the | 1973 movie, I haven 't seen the new show)_ | folli wrote: | First season is worth a watch IMO. It handles topics | addressed by the movie in greater depth (sentient robots, a | bit like the story of Pinocchio). | | The other seasons are made confusing seemingly on purpose | without adding to the story. | cratermoon wrote: | Andromeda Strain - stuck in a high-security bio-research | facility with a deadly alien pathogen. | ben7799 wrote: | I struggled with whether or not to include that one.. | haven't actually read it and wasn't sure. | | The whole genre is "Lost World" and goes all the way back | to King Solomon's Mines in the 1800s. | cratermoon wrote: | In Andromeda Strain, there's a bit of a twist in that as | the situation with the pathogen in the lab deteriorates, | the automatic safety systems start locking it down even | more tightly. The lab is made up of multiple levels, with | the lowest level (underground) being the most controlled. | For plot reasons, one of the researchers has to try to | get from the lowest level to an upper one and the | security systems actively try to stop him. | 1MachineElf wrote: | This article inspired a keycap set for mechanical keyboards, G20 | Semiotic, back in 2016: | https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=85525.0 | | It's one of my favorite sets. Unfortunately, it isn't available | to purchase anymore. Signature Plastics said it would be coming | back, but that was before the pandemic, and nothing's been said | about it since. | stuart78 wrote: | Love it, i'd be hitting that w two or three times a day. | gedy wrote: | I have this set, and added it to an old Motorola terminal for | patrol cars: https://postimg.cc/N5GLsQ9X | OoOOo wrote: | That's a thing of beauty! | 1MachineElf wrote: | Looks like a salvaged piece of equipment from the Nostromo. | akkartik wrote: | Previous thread from 2016: | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11977909 | qwerty456127 wrote: | Although the "Moon"'s font is less boring, it almost shouts | "don't read me" when more than a couple of words are displayed | with it. And it also seems grotesquely unrealistic - nobody would | use such a font to display anything useful in real life, even in | future. | sidpatil wrote: | That's the OCR-A font. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OCR-A). | As you can guess from the name, it was designed for readability | by both humans and computers. | | These days it looks like that font is more popular for graphic | design than it is for actual OCR applications. | jhbadger wrote: | See also that weird font still used on many US paper checks | (E-13B). Half the movies in the 1970s used that as the | default computer/future font. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetic_ink_character_recogni. | .. | atombender wrote: | The sci-fi font that showed up in the 60s was not MICR, but | a bunch of typefaces inspired by it. Chief among these was | Westminster [1] and Data 70. They were inspired by MICR, | but the latter only has digits and a few control | characters. | | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_(typeface) | crispyambulance wrote: | OK, but it's not about legibility here. | | It's about creating a feeling. Fonts like other graphic | elements CAN communicate feeling in addition to whatever they | spell out. | | The case of Moon and Alien, it communicates a non-empathic | "Company" that has a lot to hide. A company that is literally | cryptic to it's own employees, of course they're going to have | unreadable user-hostile fonts. | | A real-life analogy might be something like UI's from Oracle | EBS (enterprise business suite): Horrific, outdated, grey-blah | swing interfaces from the 90's that have tentacles in every | aspect of employee work-life from vacation-requests to | procurement, to bonuses and customer relationships. | qwerty456127 wrote: | By the way I always loved Swing interfaces and always felt | like they are incredibly cozy, emotionally warm and also tidy | at the same time. | | Here[1] is a picture of Oracle EBS. To me it seems beautiful | (literally). | | And if I look at the more classic Swing style here[2] I | almost feel urge to run around naked and scream about how | damn beautiful it is. I certainly want every app I use and | the OS itself to be entirely in this design and I would even | pay just for that (because I feel like that would boost my | psychological well-being and productivity). | | So, given our perception of this same UI is on the opposite | extremes I conclude this is _highly_ subjective. | | [1] https://cdn.app.compendium.com/uploads/user/e7c690e8-6ff9 | -10... | | [2] https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E37069_01/html/E37073/figures/ | ide... | jhbadger wrote: | While I don't share your enthusiasm for Swing, I understand | it in principle because I really love the NextStep UI with | its 3D effects and yet I've met people who think it is | ugly. | crispyambulance wrote: | Understood... yes, it's all subjective, even if that | screenshot makes me vomit a little! | | FWIW, you aren't showing that text often overflows it's | textbox and you can't actually see what's in it without | putting your cursor in and moving it to the end of the | text. They didn't have the concept of expanding to fit | content back then? or maybe most corporations can't afford | the oracle consultant that will do it for them ! :-) It's | OK though, most of the time you can just export to excel | with a few clicks. | | Of course, such applications require lots of tuning, and | though they might have been cozy 20 years ago, they seem | harsh and burdensome today because no one bothers to change | stuff any more. You're just supposed to conform to it. | lazide wrote: | You can totally expand to resize based on content, among | many other tricks. That would require someone to care to | do so, which is probably the bigger problem. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2021-08-12 23:00 UTC)