JKR

This parody of the Michael Cera filmography (you know him – he’s the dorky teen in a handful of indie-style comedies) popped up online this month.  Because Cera epitomises a certain style of quirky film we get the joke, though in fairness not all his posters feature this font. However, someone should get to work on designing a font called “Sundance Festival” or “Twee” such is the ubiquity of the doodle to signify this genre:

Ironic that an intelligent, off-beat, indie vibe is evoked in such a uniform by-the-numbers way. I’m sure film marketers know that the cliché works – when choosing a movie it tells us exactly what we will be getting, much as 3-D metallic sans serif lets you know it’s a superhero action movie. But what clichés give in terms of clarity they deplete in distinctiveness. Arguably it’s significant that the two recent “breakout” indie films which won wider audiences both had typography with a mind of its own:

Perhaps this suggests that if you don’t want to be pigeon-holed to a narrow audience, it’s smart to avoid expressing yourself too literally through the conventions of your category.