The Typography of Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”

“Typeset in the Future” is a new blog by Dave Addey that’s “dedicated to fonts in sci-fi.” For his inaugural post, he sets about dissecting the type in (what Chris thinks is) the greatest science fiction film ever made, 2001: A Space Odyssey. Released in 1968, the film represents breakthroughs in both set design and typography, of which it takes full advantage.  Dave begins, 

2001: A Space Odyssey – Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 sci-fi masterpiece – seems an appropriate place to start a blog about typography in sci-fi. Amongst other delights, it offers a zero-gravity toilet, emergency resuscitations, exploding bolts, and product placement aplenty. It’s also the Ur Example of Eurostile Bold Extended’s regular appearance in spacecraft user interfaces.

Right from the opening scene, we’re treated to Kubrick’s love of bold, clean, sans-serif typography:

[The] title card is set in Gill Sans, one of the all-time classic sans-serif fonts. Perhaps surprisingly, the zeroes in ‘2001’ appear to be set with the Gill Sans capital letter O (shown below on the left), rather than its  zero character.

Good stuff, indeed. Looking forward to many more updates. 

2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY [Typeset in the Future]