Typefaces

by Caroline Black

We are thinking of calling our board game group “Meeples without a Cludo”. I know that won’t mean anything to you Americans. We were looking at typefaces for the new logo. I never noticed before the type face for Cludo has a red “u”.

I think the type face you use on a game is really important. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s just me. Here are some of my favourites….and some that I think are…not so good.

I love the way the “c” blends into the “k” and looks like a rocket taking off. I quite like this cover although the rocket somehow seems incongruous.

This is so clever as the the title starts off with exaggeratedly serifs on the “n” and then letter by letter they reduce to sans serifs. A beautiful yet subtle effect.

I like the way the “c” is a scythe and the letters are sort of distressed at the top.

I like the 1950’s vibe of this. I like how the bow of her apron overhangs the “o”. Really this shouldn’t work. There are two many typefaces and too much going on. The first time I saw this it just jumped out to me and I wanted to own the game. I like the red spiky speech bubble so reminiscent of special offers in your local co-op. Also the theme is great. Who doesn’t want to run a burger joint? But it’s a 4.21 so it’s a bit heavy for me. The other thing I really like about this game is the possibility of upgrades. Actually the more I think about it, especially now I have a dedicated space for board games, the more I might just buy this game. But I digress.

Dune is not a game I own or would want to own. But the cover is particularly striking. I like the attempt at an ambigram (where the word reads the same if it is turned upside down) I think ultimately it fails because, to me, they should have made the “d” and the “e” the same as the “un” rather than stretch them out.

Finally Villagers. As regular subscribers will know I love the card index system which is used for storage in this game. The tile has the letters made out of wood and the grass sort of anchors them. Simple but effective.

Now for the bad. And boy are they bad. I am really sorry if I am about to diss your favourite game.

The kerning between the “l” and “i” in the title of Flick Wars could have so easily have been just a little bit closer together.

This one just really cracks me up.

The worse typeface of all time is Elysium. They replaced some of the Roman letters with similar looking greek letters. My outrages daughter, who is studying classics, even photographed thus to put on the course chat. It doesn’t even look effective.