Netflix’s Stranger Things is picking up a real reputation as a show that gets the little details right. The music, the costuming, and even the typefaces: They all work to ground the show in its 1980’s Indiana setting, in a universe where the wonders and threats of Steven Spielberg and John Carpenter are never far from reach. We’ve talked before with the show’s creators, Matt and Ross Duffer, about its gorgeous opening credits sequence, created by Imaginary Forces, the firm that also created the jittery, Nine Inch Nails-backed credits for David Fincher’s Se7en. Now we’ve got a blog post, penned by fan and designer Sarah Gless, that takes a deep dive into the fonts and techniques that create the intro’s almost-hypnotic appeal.
As noted in our talk with the Duffers, the show’s logo draws heavily from the covers of old Stephen King novels. Gless goes ahead and names the font—a modified version of Benguiat, apparently—and then discusses its history, its contrast with the sans-serif font (Avant Garde) that the show uses for the actor’s names, and even the relationship between the designers of the two typefaces. (Apparently, they were a couple of font-nerd buddies back in the 1970s.) She also talks about how the close-in zoom shots and slow pans of the intro create emotional intimacy for the viewer, which—given that we’ve had this thing repeating on our computer off-and-on more-or-less constantly for the last few weeks—seems to have fulfilled its intended job. You can read Gless’s entire analysis of the Stranger Things credits right here.