For this I head straight back to my favorite book and one of my favorite movies: The Great Gatsby. There are many sources of inspiration throughout the book and the movies for me. Anything from romance, never giving up, love, cinematography, not to mention the amazing soundtrack in Baz Luhrmann's Film. This post will focus on typography, and not in the book, in the 2013 film (opposed to the one from the 1970's).
Being from the 1920's a Deco typography obviously makes sense. I have seen some books that have the tile written as:
I really like this font, I seems to stand tall and pushes parts of the letters to the top or bottom of the letter like the line that normally goes across an A is pushed towards the top of the A, same with the middle line in the E. The letters are also rounded, like the point on the A. Now onto the movie:
The main font here is the deco font that makes the word "Gatsby" Here the letters are "fat" and are decorated with many extra lines. For the alphabet from the movie as well as some of the JG (Jay Gatsby) logos found around Gatsby's mansion , take a look below:
One thing I find interesting is that each character is "fat" giving it a more three dimensional look, but you'd think giving each character a three dimensional look that they all would face the same way, but they don't. As you can see the A looks like it is facing left opposed to the Y which appears to face right. Also, don't forget to check out the "JG" logos.
Within the 2013 movie the narrating character, Nick Carraway, played by Tobey Maguire, is seen with what appears to be a therapist and the therapist offers for him to write down his experiences dealing with his recent past and Gatsby, as shown by the clip:
Here he starts off writing in his journal the story about Gatsby, as you can see he is handwriting it.
This next clip is when he is at a private party with Tom and his mistress:
He writes once again in his journal this time about becoming drunk. Notice he wrote once and has it crossed out as he writes twice. Also, note that the last word has a pattern. Keep in mind the prohibition is in play in the 1920s.
Here is the famous "I was within and without" line:
This next clip is interesting as we see Nick upgrade from handwriting to typing on a typewriter:
The next clip is near the end, notice the cool effect of all the letters making it look like it is raining:
Finally, the last, and one of the most notable, lines is shown here:
I really like how this film includes these notable lines in the movie, not just an actor saying them but Nick actually writing them and you can see what's being written. I also like the typography change as he goes from handwriting to typewriter. It shows him becoming invested in writing his story. I also like how not only did they show the words in the film they also really incorporated it in the film. For example the pattern on the word "afternoon" and how the word lifted off sending the camera through the second "o" or when the letters gave the effect of rain and set an eerie mood about New York only he experienced. Also, the Deco typography used throughout the entire film is really cool.
I hope you enjoyed this and find inspiration from it as well.
