How To Make Your Text Look Futuristic

We’ve already seen how Eurostyle Bold Extended is brilliantly effective at establishing the time frame of a film. But if Eurostyle isn’t enough, there’s more you can do to make your film’s timeline clearer. I want to introduce you to six simple rules that are guaranteed to set your lesson firmly in the future.

We’ll start with some simple sans-serif text, like this randomly selected word in Eurostyle bold. So far, 2016:

rule 1: First, let’s add an italic slant. We want it to feel like the text is heading into 2020:

Hmm. It’s still a little boring. Rule 2: What if we made things a little more curved in some places and a little more angular in others? I hear this is all the printing rage in 2035:

he is excess better! There’s still more we can do, mind. Rule 3: How about adding some consummate versus to some letters? Yes! That would be nice!

Hello, 2050:

there is still However, there is something missing – we have forgotten to take into account the disastrous Cairn Wars of 2067. Rule 4: Let’s combine some letters into one, to make sure we’re not violating the Kern decanine:

Now We are talking! let’s finish together Rule 5: Remove a completely redundant and arbitrary section of text. In this case, we will remove a horizontal line from most of the word:

Wow! it looks amazing! Who knew getting to 2092 was so easy?

Do you know – I think we need it Rule 6 Very. Let’s add a noise texture, some shamelessly steel-brushed metal, and a little moody blue light:

Finally, let’s rough it up within an inch of its life:

…and add a damn Star Field:

Boom. Welcome to the future!

If you put the whole thing together this is what it would look like:

Now. Various permutations of these six rules have been implemented in many different films. maybe ur example is ridley scott blade RunnerWhich I might have copied a bit in my example above:

However, Blade Runner is far from the only example. Logotype for 2003 battlestar galactica The miniseries follows every rule to the letter (and adds some extruded Eurostyle bold extended for good measure):

transformer Equally ubiquitous, taking the brushed metal effect to the extreme:

guardians of the galaxy Also uses almost every trick except italics:

…Whereas robocop It’s all about those classic vs. the world’s most extreme bulges:

star warsOf course, takes rule 4 and runs with it to the bank:

…Whereas amazing spider man Follows almost all the rules (and takes Rule 2 to the extreme), although it will receive a visit from the Tyth Cairn Police for missed opportunities:

Captain America: The Winter Soldier In fact What it’s like to apply Rules 2 and 3, plus some of the best Rule 6 you’ll ever see:

alien vs hunter is ridiculously italic and metallic:

G.I. Joe: Retaliation Uses every trick except kerning:

And Wall·E Is All About Rule 2:

Finally: If you have any doubt that these six rules indicate the future, here are Rules 1, 2, and 4 in action for anyone else looking for an iconic logotype. back to the future Self:

helloFuture. it’s good to be back.

Update: Many have noted that I largely missed the textbook-est textbook example of this trope – namely, Star Trek: The Next Generation: :

I mean seriously. It even has a god-damn star field in the background. (I swear I didn’t have this logotype in mind when I wrote the article, but boy, does it prove the point.)

Fun Facts: An expanded version of this article appears in typeset in the future The book, available 11 December 2018. You can pre-order it now on Amazon.