My writing about papyrus had taken a break for a while simply because I couldn’t keep up with the volume. It’s everywhere. And I wish I was joking, but the sad thing is that lazy designers exist everywhere and due to the ubiquity of computers, so does fucking papyrus.
The most recent addition to the papyrus hall of shame is James Cameron’s Avatar, which looks infreakingcredible. And as much as the combination of Sigouney Weaver, James Cameron and giant blue creatures gets my heart aflutter, the sight of papyrus in the trailer was enough to make me wretch and STOP PAYING ATTENTION TO THE AWESOMENESS.
Joss, you signed the font crime
This isn’t the first time that papyrus has been used in otherwise awesome context. Joss Whedon’s Firefly used the font repeatedly and the sight of the Kaylee painting it on Serenity just validates the font for other people. Joss, you work so hard to overturn our narrative expectations, but then are victim of the most banal and offensive font crime possible.
Sweet Jesus, make it stop
Even my beloved Batman: The Animated Series used papyrus in the title card for the Tyger, Tyger episode. William Blake has never been so mangled before. And I’m not talking about the quality of the episode, I’m talking about fuglifying of one of the most beautiful poems in the English language by alluding to it with a font that has nothing to do with tigers and is really a slap in the face to Blake’s artistry:
The original plate of William Blake's The Tyger
Speaking of fuglyfied things, Richard sent me a link to what is the most awesome catalog of hideous design. The kind people at Your Logo Makes Me Barf have been posting fuglos (fucking ugly logos) for a while now and their inventory is eye gougingly amazing:
Beyond Words
Here’s a link to my growing papyrus flickr set that has photos from Vancouver, Portland, Seattle and Amsterdam.
sigh.
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