
The Typography of ‘Stranger Things’ - thoughtpalette
https://blog.nelsoncash.com/the-typography-of-stranger-things-e35771f40d31#.37yms804p
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SwellJoe
I watched the show entirely on the strength of the title song; Netflix was
playing promos for the show in the weeks leading up to its release, and I
loved the music so much. It references classic 80s themes like _Terminator_ ,
as well as horror scores from the era, but is still modern and interesting. It
isn't _merely_ nostalgic, just like the intro video sequence isn't merely
nostalgic. They use modern techniques to manipulate classic imagery and sounds
to come up with a thing that is both nostalgic _and_ novel. It's awesome.

The show isn't bad, either, but the intro really is a perfect thing. It gives
me that weird creepy feeling I got from Stephen King movies on VHS when I was
a kid. I feel like the composers and the folks behind the intro should be
getting higher billing in the credits. It's so integral to the success of the
show.

~~~
arielweisberg
Wow I had a bad reaction to the show. I feel like half of it needed to head to
the cutting room floor. Episodes are 48 minutes long, but very little
interesting happens.

A lot of it is worn out tropes involving child and "teenage" actors that don't
make it any more interesting to watch.

The photography is pretty uninspired and makes very little interesting use of
composition, color, perspective, DOF. Sure you get a bone once in a while but
most of it is pretty boring.

There is a passable few episodes in there somewhere waiting to be ruthlessly
edited out. But really instead of subverting expectations in it's storytelling
it hews very closely to the expectations that come with the tropes and genre.
That puts a hard ceiling on how good it's ever going to be given that I'm not
tuning in for the acting, sets, or photography.

~~~
SwellJoe
The show is not as good as the intro. And, the show is, like the intro, an
homage to a bunch of 80s stuff. If you didn't grow up loving Stephen King
novels and movies, and the like, you may not sync up with the stories they're
telling.

They really are retreading a bunch of 80s tropes; I enjoy it, but I recognize
that the kids are rehashing a Spielberg-ian kidventure flick along the lines
of Goonies or ET, the teenagers are stuck in a horror flick ala Friday the
13th, and the grownups are in a paranoid government conspiracy movie. Any of
it would also fit comfortably into an X Files episode. I like all those
things; even while I recognize they're pandering to my inner child. Then
again, my girlfriend really likes it, too, and she's young enough to have not
grown up on any of these things.

So, I don't know. I like it. It's not high art, but it's definitely fun pop
culture, for me.

~~~
RangerScience
There's this interesting thing with the Netflix originals - they feel
fantastically formulaic. Or, maybe a better way to put it - I feel like I can
see the genes (memes?) in the story, and it comes out the better for it.

In my imagination, it starts with the data scientists identifying a gap or
opportunity based on people's viewing habits - House of Cards being the prime
example; a show by X staring Y in Z genre.

That provides the baseline; queue the writers raised on TV Tropes. I don't
think there's an intact trope in the whole show; anything that is primarily
subverted has sub-tropes done straight; anything done straight has sub-tropes
subverted.

The Marvel series do this the least; the pure Netflix originals do this the
most. I'd say maybe you could call it "high craft"? Like Michelangelo versus
Picasso.

~~~
SwellJoe
House of Cards had the British version to build on, so it's not entirely a
Netflix taste triangulation.

But, the CEO or somebody from Netflix has actually spelled out in the past
that though they're taking risks in making a bunch of their own content, the
risk is smaller than it has historically been. They know the taste of their
audience (on a nearly individual level) better than any entertainment company
in history ever has. And, they extract the value of their viewers directly and
without middlemen, unlike almost every other entertainment company in history.
So, for them, a successful show is one that brings in X number of new
subscribers and keeps them around through multiple seasons...and that X number
is smaller than it's ever needed to be.

So, you're right; they _are_ triangulating in on very specific sub-genres and
very specific audiences in ways that entertainment companies in the past
couldn't afford to do. This is long-tail television production. Stranger
Things, while it is a niche market, is actually one of the bigger niche
markets they've tapped into, thus far. It's gotten far more buzz than a lot of
the other Netflix original programming.

So, they're either getting better at the triangulation (likely) or they got
lucky with this particular toss at the dart board of niche programming, or
maybe it's a little of both. And, maybe the people making this show happened
to be particularly passionate about it, and it shows in the attention to
detail; they're having fun with it, and it makes it fun for viewers who like
this sort of thing (or, are at least nostalgic about it...I don't read/watch
Stephen King novels/movies very frequently as an adult, but loved them as a
kid).

I find the quality of the Netflix originals to vary pretty wildly, and I don't
get hooked on most of them. But, I enjoyed Stranger Things. It's a fun
escapist bit of entertainment. It's no House of Cards, or even Orange is the
New Black, in terms of quality, but it delivers very effectively on what it
promises.

I wonder how well Stranger Things is doing among viewers who aren't old enough
to have grown up surrounded by this stuff? I know many of my friends on
facebook are hooked, but mostly the ones really talking about it are around my
age. It's an interesting phenomenon, I think; the stuff it is paying homage to
and modeled after was mostly targeted at kids and young adults, but the people
most excited about it are maybe middle aged. Weird how that happens.

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flashman
I liked how this show was set in the eighties, but wasn't about them. It could
almost have been made thirty years ago.

One of my other recent title sequence favourites is 'Halt and Catch Fire'[1],
again set in the 80s, in no small part because of the nod towards Apple's
advertising fonts[2].

[1][https://vimeo.com/97089384](https://vimeo.com/97089384)

[2][http://i.imgur.com/xuCBYgZ.png](http://i.imgur.com/xuCBYgZ.png)

~~~
cmrx64
When I started watching it I was expecting some cringe-worthy 80s nostalgia
panning, but it was very tasteful. The little universe they set up for
themselves is taken very seriously.

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RIMR
I'm glad I'm not the only one who has rewound just to watch the intro again.
It's typographic pornography.

Stranger Things is one of the best shows I've seen in a while. That 53 seconds
is still the best part every time though.

~~~
dahart
Is coining a new portmanteau in order?

TYPORNOGRAPHY

~~~
flycaliguy
This is a complaint I have in most "___-Porn" instances... Why porn? It feels
like the wrong context most of the time.

Porn is graphic, over stimulating and often without class or artistic
direction.

Typography is an art. Great typography is subtle, often soothing and
harmonious. It's not porn.

I get some earth-porn stuff because we in cities live so removed from nature
that it's like BAM, Massive Earth In Your Face.

I don't know, it just feel gross to call good typography porn. Good typography
is like an athlete in motion or a perfectly fitted outfit on a beautiful
model.

Don't take the complaint personally, I get that it's "a thing".

~~~
sangnoir
> This is a complaint I have in most "___-Porn" instances... Why porn?

I think the term reflects exuberant hedonism and/or complete lack of
inhibition exhibited by, or in appreciating the said ___-porn activity. In my
mind, it's similar to saying "unapologetic ____", but in a positive sense of
the word.

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ultrasandwich
The typography and music composition both communicate volumes for this show.
The band (SURVIVE) behind most of the compositions is totally stellar too...
[https://survive.bandcamp.com/](https://survive.bandcamp.com/)

------
carlob
There was a wonderful post [1] on r/italy (unfortunately in Italian), by a guy
that works in cinema that explained all this and more.

He explains not only the motion blur and the film grain, but also things like
how color shift when white fades out (it's about different color sensitivity
curves in real film).

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/italy/comments/4te9hl/stranger_thin...](https://www.reddit.com/r/italy/comments/4te9hl/stranger_things_una_sequenza_dei_titoli_che/)?

~~~
graedus
> also things like how color shift when white fades out (it's about different
> color sensitivity curves in real film)

This is my favorite detail - very subtle and authentic looking. I was hoping
someone could explain it, thanks for the pointer.

------
bitmapbrother
This show was the complete package and one of the most entertaining shows I've
watched in some time. It had something for everyone. I can't wait for season
2.

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dpcx
This show was a great watch for me, and I think the typography and music were
absolutely _key_ in doing so. The entire feel of the show was a reminder of my
youth, and I had a lot of fun with Stranger Things.

~~~
mastazi
The music reminds me of John Carpenter e.g. Escape from New York, Halloween
etc.

~~~
pluma
It's an entire genre from the early 2000s called "synthwave" (or "retrowave").
The band that did the intro is called S U R V I V E, some other noteworthy
bands are GUNSHIP and Kavinsky. They're heavily inspired by 80s movies,
particularly John Carpenter's.

~~~
res0nat0r
It sounds like from all the talk I keep hearing about the intro is that people
are discovering how much they like retrowave.

There are tons of artists on Spotify/YouTube for this genre to check out too
which is a good thing.

~~~
mastazi
@pluma @res0nat0r thanks for that, I did not know that there was an entire
genre. I'll definitely look into it!

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knucklesandwich
Low content comment: I love that someone wrote this, because I was literally
wondering if an article with this title would show up on HN.

Really cool typography (also a fantastic show). I know almost nil about the
subject, but the title font also reminds me a lot of Friz Quadrata [1], the
font famously used by Black Flag, which gives me another kind of 80s
nostalgia.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friz_Quadrata](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friz_Quadrata)

~~~
akx
Friz Quadrata is arguably more famously used as the interface font for World
of Warcraft.

------
TheOtherHobbes
Typographically, see also the Lucasfilm logo.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhO_YjAJq_w](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhO_YjAJq_w)

I'm not really getting the excitement. I remember this look from the 80s and
it's... a look I remember from the 80s.

The music is half Carpenter and half late 1970s Tangerine Dream with more
oscillator detuning than usual - e.g. the score TD did for a William Friedkin
movie called Sorcerer.

------
jack_jennings
Additional reading from the type archivists at Fonts in Use:
[http://fontsinuse.com/uses/13992/stranger-
things](http://fontsinuse.com/uses/13992/stranger-things)

A few nice quotes about the design direction and a pair of comments at the end
with illustrations of the source material with the original cut of Benguait.

------
cmrx64
One other tiny detail I noticed was that the text (and not just the red
glowing title) flickered slightly as if you were watching a VHS.

~~~
robert_tweed
It goes deeper. Look at some lights in the main programme: the way they have
glowing halos. Especially the red lights in the opening sequence of ep1, or
the bike headlights when they are facing the camera. It's probably CGI for
cost reasons, but it's been deliberately done "badly" so it looks like
traditional effects.

------
abalone
If you love 80s kinetic typography porn check out this music video Justice put
out a few years ago: [https://vimeo.com/30371091](https://vimeo.com/30371091)

~~~
macspoofing
Wow. Really well done.

------
overcast
I watched the entire Stranger Things season all in one sitting. Sadly, the
opening title and musical score was the best part of it. I was completely
pumped when I heard a show based in 80's nostalgia was coming to Netflix.
Unfortunately that was about all it offered. It ticked off every 80's cliche;
Stephen King fonts, Spielbergesque characters and settings, tired cop given a
second chance to do something meaningful, single mom raising boys away from a
deadbeat dad, group of nerdy young kids solving issues on their BMX bikes,
alien hiding in a shed (ET), and a secret megacorp coverup. The story was
completely uninspiring, that even some exceptional acting couldn't rescue. The
actress playing Eleven was fantastic! But Winona Ryder was WAS over dramatic.

------
drewg123
I _LOVED_ the show, but hated the intro because it broke into the binge
watching flow. Eg, because it was not at the beginning and/or just after
"previous episode" scenes meant that it didn't get auto-skipped when binge
watching. So it interrupted my viewing experience every hour or so.

Yeah, I know, first world problems.

------
mountaineer22
Anybody else notice in the first episode that the automatic dishwasher in the
diner had red and blue PEX lines?

~~~
revscat
Can you explain this a bit, please? What are PEX lines?

~~~
gk1
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-
linked_polyethylene](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-linked_polyethylene)

------
ommunist
The lettering of this title is indeed thoroughly thought through. By the way
many Chinese movies these day present very nice eye-pleasers from a
typographycal perspective. Its a pity the Western eye lacks criteria for
admiration of those.

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bbctol
ITC Avant Garde has made such a comeback in recent years I almost forget it's
a 70s font.

------
edem
The score reminds me of Mass Effect and makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

