Exocet is a typeface designed by the British typographer Jonathan Barnbrook for the Emigre foundry in 1991. It was originally designed for the European annual series Illustration Now.[1]

Exocet
CategoryDisplay
Designer(s)Jonathan Barnbrook
FoundryEmigre
Exocet sample text in a pangram
Sample
Qoppa, inspiration for the font's Q

The font is inspired by ancient incised Greek and Roman letter carvings,[1] with geometric shapes used for the main construction. For example, its stylized Q is based on qoppa, an ancient form of Q. The O with a cross (A symbol of a cross within a circle) is an early form of theta.

It is an all-capital font, but with different capital glyphs for both lowercase and capital letters. However, the only letter that has visually distinct forms is T, with the lowercase t being a cross.

Variants edit

It is available in "light" and "heavy" varieties. There is no italic.

A sans version of the font from the same designer, called Patriot, was released in 1997.

Notable uses edit

 
A welcome sign in Norway using the Exocet font

It was used extensively for product designs in the 1990s, most notably for the American tea company Tazo. It was also used on the album cover of Donald Fagen's 1993 album Kamakiriad. It can be seen in the 1993 movie Demolition Man where it is used extensively in the museum scene.[2] It was also used in the film Dogma, the film Star Trek Nemesis[citation needed], the Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting Planescape, the English translation of the Korean manhwa Priest, the Diablo computer game series, the Double Switch full motion video game, and the Sony PlayStation scrolling shooter game Einhänder.

See also edit

References edit

  1. ^ a b "Exocet — Barnbrook Barnbrook". barnbrook.net. Retrieved 2021-12-08.
  2. ^ Jonathan Barnbrook (1996-12-07). "Demolition Man Font". Newsgroupcomp.fonts. Usenet: virus-0712961921400001@virus.easynet.co.uk. Retrieved 2007-07-15.