Typography of 2001: A Space Odyssey (2014) | Hacker News Reader

Typography of 2001: A Space Odyssey (2014)

typesetinthefuture.com

189 pointssudobash175 comments

I was flying from LA to Sydney a few years ago and 2001: A Space Odyssey was available on the entertainment system. After a few hours and a couple of glasses of wine I put it on and fell straight asleep. I awoke groggily some time later to this[0] frame from the movie. The next second and a half I experienced pure terror until I realised I wasn't plunging to my death in the middle of the pacific ocean and how the pre-flight safety briefing really sugar coats the reality.

[0]: https://typesetinthefuture.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/2001_...

The subtext to the requirement that only strong and willing passengers sit in the emergency row is not their ability to open the door in the event of an emergency, but to block the aisle and stem the flood of panicking passengers in the rows behind while a staff member opens the door.

Are there people who have managed to watch this movie in one sitting without falling asleep?

Yes. I was captivated the first time I watched it, many years after watching 2010.

However, if I watched it on a plane, I'd probably fall asleep as well - because it would be on a plane and I tend to sleep while I travel :)

As with some other movies, this critically depends on how you watch it. Immersion is key here, so you must watch it on a large screen, in high resolution (and definitely in one sitting).

Typography, to me, is one of those things that’s simultaneously incredibly boring and completely fascinating. On the one hand, it’s something you experience (whether consciously or not) for a large part of your day, and each font you read in your day has been meticulously chosen for all the supposed qualities it gives off. But on the other hand - it’s just a bloody font.

Just a bloody font, the choice of which can greatly enhance your experience (or detract from it).

I would recommend https://practicaltypography.com/

EDIT: mind you, typography is much more than 'just fonts'.

I've started reading it. I'll finish it.

But it's subjectively the worst font (or layout, or kerning, or aliasing, or something - I'm extremely not an expert:) I've seen since... mid-90's? I don't know HOW they made it look that bad; I checked if they were accidentally-enlarged images, but nope.

In addition to letters looking (subjectively) bad, it also looks strange. Kernings looks slightly off, and the "Small but necessary interruption" feels like it has another 3 fonts in there. Perhaps They're just lighter or narrow variations (again, not an expert), and then the user-added ALL CAPS with different spacing yet... it feels I'm reading 19th century print. Which is quaint, might be precisely what author is looking for (I once spent an hour trying to get letters on a CD look JUST the right amount of offset and wobbly :P ), but feels a bit... old school.

https://practicaltypography.com/typography-in-ten-minutes.ht...

Any suggestions on good reading to learn?

Yeah it's strange, the content is about typography, but something about it is really hard to look at, at least on Mozilla Firefox. On some pages e.g. the typography-in-ten-minutes page it looks like the first paragraph is slightly, but not obviously, larger than the subsequent paragraphs.

Everything seems stretched vertically, and the stuff in all-caps is borderline A E S T H E T I C with the horizontal spacing.

Interesting, it does look different on Firefox (vs Chrome-based browsers).

It's not ALL CAPS but sᴍᴀʟʟ ᴄᴀᴘs[0]. The author uses them as links, perhaps to illustrate this very difference. See also 14, 15 from "Summary of key rules"[1].

Sorry for the nitpick, but at the end that's actually what 90% of typography is all about, tiny details.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_caps

[1]: https://practicaltypography.com/summary-of-key-rules.html

No problems with kerning on my device, that I can see.

The fonts used, just like in books, each have their purpose - https://practicaltypography.com/how-to-use.html

Also, you can change the body text font by clicking the font name at the bottom.

I've tried it on iPhone and chrome and looks ok.

Firefox in 27" still looks significantly off

> it’s just a bloody font.

Obligatory http://wondermark.com/650/

Heh, first time I’ve seen this. I’m of the opinion that as long as you’re not using something wildly out of place like papyrus or comic sans in a professional setting, it’s not hugely impactful what font you choose. You can spend hours comparing the subtle differences between helvetica and ariel but does it really make a difference?

Also unrelated but the shocked dude in the last pane looks way too much like Elon Musk for my liking.

I think fonts can make a difference where readability or accessibility is important. One example of a bad font choice in the UK is on the signs placed on roads after fatal accidents which ask witnesses to provide information. The contact number is written in a font that looks like a seven-segment display and that is virtually unreadable when you are driving past. The designer must have thought it looked good but it is unreadable.

(Elon Musk lol)

When someone leaves their computer unlocked in my presence, I don't give them new wallpaper. Okay sometimes I still do, but mostly I've moved beyond that.

I change their Outlook signature to Comic Sans.

Someday I will get my comeuppance.

> Someday I will get my comeuppance.

May they throw the CFAA at you, villain.

That business card should have been in comic sans.

It is not just the font it is how you use it.

Out of the box in PowerPoint or Illustrator, you will struggle to set large characters in print unless you manually change character spacing.

I look at the movie titles and think there are mistakes in the spacing and wonder what kind of machine they used to make it.

All the above software is supposed to have automated ‘Kerninq’ of characters but it does not work well enough.

If serif spacing is tight, the letters link together like cursive or Arabic calligraphy and form a meaningful composition. The default rules, however, avoid serifs crashing into each other at all costs, space letters too far apart, and create meaningless white spaces.

> I look at the movie titles and think there are mistakes in the spacing and wonder what kind of machine they used to make it.

They were probably done by hand, especially given the swapping of characters from different fonts.

I've forgotten the name of the company [flir reminds me in the comment below that it was Letraset], but it was common back then (yes, I'm an old fart, though was a kid when that film came out) to have a transparent sheet with adhesive vinyl (? or some other polymer) letters you could transfer over one by one to your workpiece. If you went into a an art supply house there would be racks of these things sorted by font and then size, down at least to 8 point.

Back in 1968 phototypesetting was not super common. It was probably used for some of the larger blocks (like the toilet instructions) although just as likely to have been done with hot lead which survived almost to the end of the 1970s.

It's hard to remember now (this mostly predated my working time since I started with laser printing in the 70s) but medium and large companies often had a lot of paper and data management departments with things like typing pools (completely retyping documents in order to incorporate edits was the state of the art) and print shops (photocopiers were expensive and uncommon into the 70s)

Letraset?

Yes, that was it! Thanks so much.

Somewhere in the late 1980s to early 1990s, business culture changed to expect everyone to be able to type and use a computer for that.

The last time I worked for a company where the upper management couldn't type, it was 1996. They all had computers, but the CEO had all email printed out and put in a physical in-tray on his desk; he would scribble comments in red ink or, if the reply was extensive, dictate into a tape recorder for his secretary to type back into an email.

Back in the 80s it was pretty "obvious" that computers wouldn't be used by execs because none of them would type.

I remember in 1982 as a favor for a secretary I wrote a little script that printed out the CEO's email. Before that he would have her type it on letterhead; he would read it and dictate the response. Just being able to print it out in a way he would read (suppress most of the headers, put the date on the right hand edge, etc) saved her an enormous amount of time and effort.

I am feeling really dumb for asking: the punchline of the comic is clearly that there is something terribly wrong with the typesetting of the business card, but what is it?

The font on the business card is Papyrus.

...which is a quite distinctive font that has shipped with Mac systems for years, so someone typeface-conscious is very likely to recognise it on sight.

Also the second-most-common typeface for people to complain about.

OK... what's the first?

Must be Comic Sans, surely.