Fonts - current and historical

Haven't seen a discussion about the fonts used in slides, idents and other on-screen graphics.

I'm a great fan of typography - there's more of an awareness of it these days, back in the 1990s menus and graphics tended to be much more "safe" in their design - i'm particularly interested in the fonts used during the 1990s -



For example, the font used on the menu and trails looks like Futura, but is it?


And Calrton/Central presentation - Gill Sans?






And what about this quirky font from Anglia in 1997?

I believe the font from Anglia above is Kabel.

Carlton is indeed Gill Sans.

the BBC menu fonts are very Futura-like, but I wonder if they were modified slightly? The menu in the first video (at 2:23) has a couple of 'The's in it. In Futura Pro, the ascender of the 'h' appears to be a fair bit higher than the bar of the T, which it isn't here. Maybe it's just the way it was reproduced by the caption machine?

(Incidentally, I think the vertical 'SATURDAY' under the 1 is Frutiger).


Eurosport use a custom font and what appears to be a typeface based on UK vehicle registration plates.


BT Sport use a lot of Flama (for now). The 'Sport' part of the logo is Gotham. The BT logotype is, of course, custom too. There was a post here in 2016 which included a 1990s "BT Cable" logo with other letters in the same typeface, but it appears to have fallen off the interweb. It was pretty ugly.

Where do you go to license some of these fonts for on air use or are they included? I’m thinking of situations where a designer makes a spot on their computer or with Adobe CS and uses a font that came with it or would they have to go through the foundry?

The broadcasters would have to license fonts. But comparing today's 'cuts' of typefaces to those used in the past will bring up issues. Type foundries update and re-draw these classic typefaces for today's technologies. And in that re-drawing the typeface changes in subtle ways. So for instance, Futura Pro today, may have differences compared to the Futura of the 90's or even the 80's.

The way text appeared on screen also changes. Some of it was printed and then filmed and overlay-ed optically. The quality of the print would affect the appearance. Was it printed by laser printers, or was it taken from a photoset?

So whilst you may identify the typeface from its clear characteristics, you will get differences.

The Eurosport logo certainly uses a custom font but as for that slide, the secondary font (not the rather odd one that looks like a number plate) looks like Circular STD to me. A really nice font actually.

i guess that was how titles were done in the 1970s - such the overlayed text on this James Bond titles from Live and Let Die (1973) (which for an optical process, is incredibly sharp and crisp)?



I assume by the 1990s pretty much all text would have been added digitally, though?

Maybe it looks crisp because I know sometimes they go back to the raw background and text elements (if they still exist) and recomposite them digitally when resorting and remastering old films and TV shows. Gives better results than the optical processes of the time could have done.

Whether that Live and Let Die is an example of that being done, or if it is the original 70s optical work, I don't know.

I believe Lowry did that when they restored all the James Bond films for the ultimate editions back in 06.