alt.hn

5/12/2026 at 8:16:26 PM

How to make your text look futuristic (2016)

 https://typesetinthefuture.com/2016/02/18/futuristic/

by _vaporwave_

5/13/2026 at 4:07:29 AM

Does the Back To The Future logo really count? Raiders of the Lost Ark as a very similar style but does not evoke "future". Yes, there are subtle differences. My point is, if you divorced them from the connection to their content I think it would be hard to point to one as "future" and the other as "not future"

by socalgal2

5/13/2026 at 8:23:33 AM

The future always has context.

by BoredPositron

5/13/2026 at 1:52:02 AM

At the 1996 ATypI meeting in Den Haag, one of the speakers coined the term “sterotypography” to refer to certain cliches that get used in type usage. Another case of this is the use of Neuland and Neuland Inline to represent Africa, and of course the assortment of faux Chinese fonts that were ubiquitous on Chinese takeout menus in the 80s and 90s (and probably still are, but are there still takeout menus in the era of Grubhub?).

by dhosek

5/13/2026 at 8:56:00 AM

We use this sort of short hand all the time.

There's "ye olde" in a gothic font.

Walk into a super market, every product is giving you non textual clues as to what it is, and why it's different from the identical thing right next to it.

You notice the odd ones out because you have to stop and work out what the thing is.

Edit. An example is spreadable 'butter', in the UK and Europe you can't say it's butter, it doesn't say it's butter, but I bet most people have never noticed that because it's in butter type packaging with the design language you'd expect.

by benj111

5/13/2026 at 10:46:24 AM

I love just how dated some of these futuristic fonts now seem, having grown up with most of them

by swiftcoder

5/13/2026 at 10:50:11 AM

Yes brings me back to the 80s demo scene…

by ako

5/13/2026 at 11:20:15 AM

Not only that, this article had the same feel of an old ANSI scene graffiti tutorial (I think it was made by the ACiD team

by alfiedotwtf

5/12/2026 at 8:41:16 PM

Needs a (2016)

> Posted on February 18, 2016 by Dave Addey

Great read otherwise, I know the author mentions their book, I do wonder if he covers the history of how these fonts came to be so standard... for future stuff

by giancarlostoro

5/12/2026 at 8:52:57 PM

As someone who has read the book, it does go through the history and inspiration of modern sci-fi typeset. Great coffee table book. Mainly expands on the articles on the website with more details and graphics.

by JK-Swizzle

5/12/2026 at 9:04:16 PM

Might have to snag it, and like you say, keep it laying around as a coffee table book somewhere. :)

by giancarlostoro

5/12/2026 at 11:52:44 PM

"Somewhere"

by bit_savager

5/13/2026 at 10:32:52 AM

In 2016 to make text look futuristic it would require using — (m dash) a lot, and maybe …

by p0w3n3d

5/12/2026 at 9:57:55 PM

And then there is the papyrus font for avatar…

by genghisjahn

5/13/2026 at 8:47:06 AM

He just... highlighted Avatar. He clicked the dropdown menu, and then he randomly selected Papyrus. Like a...Like a thoughtless child just wandering by a garden, just yanking leaves along the way.

by arionmiles

5/13/2026 at 2:44:30 AM

It's tribal, yet futuristic.

by jayd16

5/12/2026 at 10:17:24 PM

They can't keep getting away with it!

by moron4hire

5/12/2026 at 10:49:01 PM

Avatar 6 and 7 planned (there's a joke there somewhere).

Papyrus on the big screen 'til mid-to-late 2030s.

by nntwozz

5/13/2026 at 6:06:49 AM

I know what you did!

by genxy

5/12/2026 at 11:43:39 PM

At least it wasn't Comic Papyrus...?

by Izkata

5/13/2026 at 12:32:20 AM

Funny. I just googled this site 2 hours ago for a font inspiration for a makerspace logo.

Michroma is a Google Font alternative for Eurostile.

by bhaak

5/13/2026 at 9:20:41 AM

Given the name you'd think it would be an alternative for Microgramma, but no, no - just look at the internal corners on letters like N, W, and V. In Microgramma they'd be flattened off but in Michroma and Eurostile they come to a point.

by ErroneousBosh

5/12/2026 at 8:55:36 PM

Typeset in the future was awesome, too bad it stopped updating

by riffraff

5/13/2026 at 4:48:56 AM

I dunno, it’s kinda futuristic, but it’s missing the faux 3d effect where it appears to have warped up close to you and left a trail of light behind it, like the Star Trek example of the end. Nothing says “future” like fake 3d effects.

by efitz

5/13/2026 at 8:57:58 AM

FWIW, ST:TNG only used the faux 3D effect for the season that aired on the year of Star Trek’s 25th anniversary. Subsequent seasons reverted to the 2d text.

by mrexroad

5/12/2026 at 8:52:40 PM

A genuinely fun post.

by xiaoyu2006

5/12/2026 at 11:29:01 PM

I agree! A refreshing interlude to the cybersecurity postmortems and corporate layoff news.

by ctippett

5/13/2026 at 2:01:21 AM

> the devastating Kern Wars of 2067

Do we know who won those wars?

by baigy

5/13/2026 at 5:27:04 AM

Had the other side won, we would know them as the Kem Wars.

by jamonserrano

5/13/2026 at 2:56:20 AM

To be honest I've had a lot of difficulty telling the two sides apart

by mikestorrent

5/13/2026 at 9:01:01 AM

Revenge is a typeface best served with Serifs

Keeeeerrrrrrrrrrrnnn!!

by mrexroad

5/13/2026 at 3:39:14 AM

From the result there, looks like each faction got to keep some terrain.

by marcosdumay

5/12/2026 at 10:21:55 PM

I kind of wish they had used something other than Eurostyle for the starting font in their example since it is already a font that has become associated with sci-fi.

Still a great article though! More of this please!

by harimau777

5/12/2026 at 11:51:23 PM

My first thought was "that's just the star trek font".

by booleandilemma

5/13/2026 at 2:51:21 AM

this is exactly the ESPN logo as well

by bigethan

5/13/2026 at 12:03:50 AM

Ironically (I’m sure with intent). This looks super 80s.

by sosomoxie

5/13/2026 at 12:44:13 AM

Very tongue-in-cheek

by mproud

5/12/2026 at 10:49:30 PM

Futura Free

by holotherapper

5/12/2026 at 11:14:06 PM 

    We want it to look like the text is stretching towards 2020
Sigh, if only :|

Who knew back then that we'd go from less design to no design at all produced by machines.

by keyle

5/12/2026 at 8:41:09 PM

This should have a (2016)

by QuercusMax

5/12/2026 at 9:00:59 PM

Is this a joke..?

by timebeforeland

5/12/2026 at 9:41:55 PM

only if you don't get it

by dylan604