Typographically Wired

At some point yesterday, during the Super Bowl, the new Victoria's Secret ad aired. My response was immediate: "Hey, those text screens look a lot like Law & Order!"

I drew laughter and mockery for not focusing on the more typically recognized, but no more valid, aesthetic qualities of the advertisement (I'm talking about the half-naked underwear model), but I stood my ground. I don't have anyone for whom to buy lingerie, and I'm not sure I would if I did, and certainly not on the merits of a Super Bowl commercial. On the other hand, I was genuinely interested today to discover that the Law & Order typeface is called Friz Quadrata, and that it is used on ramen flavor packets.

And I don't think my attribution of similarity between the Law & Order and Victoria's Secret typefaces is too far off.

In other typographic news, Apple Trailers committed an error of false relation between two upcoming movies. The placed the trailer link images right next to each other and used the same typeface---Lucide Grande---for each. The obvious disparity in time period between the two just creates confusion for the user.

I would blame lazy movie poster designers from Paramount Vantage, the studio for both films. Lucide Grande is used for all the non-image titles on Apple Trailers and must just be stuck on by default when the image lacks a title.

And, no, I have not watched either trailer yet, no matter how hot Keira Knightley and Daniel Craig are. I was too busy thinking about fonts.