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Following on from the International Herald Tribune’s article on film poster designers. I can’t help having a bit of a go at Casino Royale... Not the film, mind. I saw the film last night and am happy to report that Daniel Craig makes poor old Pierce Brosnon and Roger Moore look like Sophia Loren’s male equivalents. Particularly cruel was coming home and switching on the telly to find ‘For Your Eyes Only’ playing. Yikes! My only critisisms are that most of the women still look like painted monsters stuck in 1989 and the Chris Cornell theme song made me bolt from the cinema at the end of the film. It’s dire.
No, my real critisism is a lot pettier than that. It’s the ruddy font they have used for the title ‘Casino Royale’. I know a lot of people shrug off this sort of thing but getting the right font adds quality to your film and James Bond has to be about quality, right. James Bond is expensive. Century Gothic is not. In fact, if you have a look, it’s probably lurking about on your computer as we speak.
Why is it free for anyone to use without, necessarily, having to pay for it? Why do they have a to give it away? Well, for the same reason you didn’t pay for Arial or Impact. It’s another shoddy redraw of a classic font made to avoid having to pay for licensing the real thing. Shame Daniel Kleinman (whose new titles are pretty fab but still not a patch on Saul Bass), when you had the choice of a well cut classic or one the latest crop of rigorously developed cut geometric style typefaces currently available (there’s a few suggestions above). Would Bond have approved?
Want to check out almost every Bond opening sequence eva? Here’s your linkage: [cinematical.com/2006/11/15/45-years-of-bondage-every-single-james-bond-credit-sequence-eve]