Exceedingly Corporate Font

September 1, 2018 11:27 PM

The typeface of choice for the late-stage capitalist. Creatives at digital agency Hello Velocity have developed Brand New Roman, a font comprised of 76 corporate brand logos. The Idiocracy-style project is partly parody, but you can actually download the font and use it—and artists have already been playing around with it, too.
posted by MovableBookLady (39 comments total)

Awesome. Looks like a ransom note made by Saul Bass.
posted by zaixfeep at 11:49 PM on September 1, 2018 [19 favorites]

fantastic
posted by growabrain at 11:53 PM on September 1, 2018

And I just noticed in that paragraph I quoted from the article that it uses "comprised of" instead of "composed of." Tut tut.
posted by MovableBookLady at 12:07 AM on September 2, 2018

How logo can you go low?
posted by The Underpants Monster at 1:24 AM on September 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

I've been a fontgeek since the days of rub-off letters in the '70s, when all my titles and headers were either Bookman, Eurostile, Hobo/Vagabond or Peignot (the Mary Tyler Moore font). And when I saw the first "RansomNote" computer font, I had to find an excuse to use it. For a long time my favorite of that subgenre was World Tour for its variety of styles for each letter and no "torn paper" borders. A couple years ago somebody tried something similar to this with logo letters called Brandsom and it uses some of the same icons: the CocaCola C, Disney D, IBM I (which I disagree that it 'breaks/bends the rules' the designer set up); and the roughness is a plus, like where the U from USA TV network has the edge of the S showing. But BrandNewRoman is exceptional, especially the way it uses selective letter combos, like if you type two 'O's in a row you get the MasterCard logo. And the way it can use the original colors is spectacular.
posted by oneswellfoop at 1:40 AM on September 2, 2018 [12 favorites]

Is there a list anywhere identifying all the parent companies? I am really stuck on a.few. Also I think adding thier own "Hello Velocity" brand logo twice is fairly cheeky.
posted by Faintdreams at 3:10 AM on September 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

Apparently Chrome (on mobile anyway) doesn't support color fonts, so the page recommended me to use Microsoft Edge. Up is down, day is night, black is white, cats and dogs are living together...
posted by Literaryhero at 3:22 AM on September 2, 2018

This puts me in mind of those occasional categories on Jeopardy that are blatant adverts, like when the contestants have to identify a brand by their logo or somesuch.

That said...Please tell me the BR (from Baskin-Robbins) is an alternate ligature.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:20 AM on September 2, 2018

“BR”? I only see “31” :p
posted by Barack Spinoza at 5:40 AM on September 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

I love this. Fonts and typefaces have become a life long, on the side obsession, for me. It stemmed from my being an editor for my high school year book. I just like fonts.
posted by Fizz at 6:09 AM on September 2, 2018

As far as I can tell

Lowercase:

Amazon
Beats by Dre
c - ?
d - ?
Explorer Browser
Facebook
Google
Hello Velocity
i - ?
j - ?
Kellogs
l - ?
Monster
Netflix
Oracle Browser
Paypal
Quicktime media player
Reeces Pieces
Skype
Tumblr
u - ?
Vimeo
Wordpress
x - ?
y - ?
z - ?

Upper Case:
Adobe
B - ?
Coca Cola
Disney
ESPN
Fifa
G - ?
Hello Velocity
J 0 ?
K - ?
L - ?
McDonalds
N - ?
O - ?
P - ?
Quinzo's Subs
Rockstar Games
S - ?
Tesla
Unilever
Visa
W - ?
Xbox
Yahoo
Z - ?

Numerals:

1 - +1 - Google
2 - ?
3 - 3Mobile
4 - Channel 4
5 - HTML 5
6 - ?
7 - & Eleven
8 - Super 8 film??
9 - ?
0 - Target ?
posted by Faintdreams at 6:38 AM on September 2, 2018 [3 favorites]

There are ligatures for two to five 'O's!

Mastercard
Cloud 9
Audi
Olympics
posted by explosion at 6:46 AM on September 2, 2018 [5 favorites]

Filling in some of the blanks in Faintdreams list:
Lowercase:
c - Champion
d - Disqus
i - ?
j - ?
l - ?
u - ?
x - 23 & Me
y - YMCA
z - Zillow

Uppercase:
B -
G - Gatorade
J - ?
K - K-Mart
L - ?
N - ?
O - Pepsi
P - ?
S - Suzuki
W - Wilson
Z - Zenith

Numerals
2 - ?
6 - ?
9 - ?
posted by cheshyre at 7:20 AM on September 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

Wow, they put a lot of effort into doing this horrifying thing right. I particularly like the use of ligatures, that's what really takes this to the next level. Wonderfully disgusting.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 7:33 AM on September 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

Don't forget about doubled letters:
gg: gucci
ff: fendi
bb: balenciaga
nn: nintendo
oo: mastercard
mm: M&Ms
dd: dunkin donuts
in: LinkedIn
br: Baskin Robins

preview: https://brandnewroman.com/c?txt=ggffbbnnoommdd%3Center%3Ebr%3Center%3Ein&color=%23000000&bg_color=%23ffffff
posted by olya at 8:14 AM on September 2, 2018 [5 favorites]

The M and the W are both acceptable. The others appear hideous. Is anybody in the ATP top 10 sponsored by Wilson and Monster?
posted by bukvich at 8:50 AM on September 2, 2018

It would have been better to have left out the I. The fact that no logo uses a standalone I says something interesting.
posted by joeyh at 9:13 AM on September 2, 2018

There’s no I in “teamwork?”
posted by GenjiandProust at 9:56 AM on September 2, 2018

6 is Overleaf, collaborative editor for scientific publishing.
posted by traveler_ at 10:00 AM on September 2, 2018

B - Bridgestone tires
P - Pirelli tires
$ - bitcoin logo, which is inspired
posted by traveler_ at 10:09 AM on September 2, 2018

"in" - Linked-In . Overrides the double 'n' in Minnesota
posted by ZeusHumms at 10:36 AM on September 2, 2018

There's also a ligature for "PS", i.e. Adobe Photoshop. Very clever. My guess is there are some other ligatures hiding in there.
posted by jeremias at 11:57 AM on September 2, 2018

The 'H's look to me like Honda and Holiday Inn.
Uppercase L is the late great Love's BBQ Restaurants.
lowercase J is jet.com, Walmart's attempt at competing directly with Amazon (not very successfully).
lowercase N is Netflix!
the 'super8' for 8 is a chain of discount motels competing with Motel6 (so why didn't it get the 6?)
and I think we can argue whether the Target bullseye should be O or 0... (I'd say Pepsi should have the zero, but I'm a Coke drinker)
yes, lowercase P is Paypal but it should've been double P
btw, the triple-zero for Cloud9 doesn't appear for me on Firefox (which should get the lowercase o instead of Opera, IMO)
I'm sorry they didn't do ligatures for too-common acronyms (having LOL show up as League of Legends would be funny) but I like how "wtf" comes up as "WordpressTumblrFacebook"; and "OMG" showing PepsiMcDonaldsGatorade is fun. EA gets Electronic Arts, NB gets New Balance, but no AA for AA (or AAA?) or CC for Creative Commons?
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:06 PM on September 2, 2018

HelloVelocity gave itself the HI ligature, which does cause confusion when you're just typing out the alphabet...
CN turns into Cartoon Network and WB turns into Warner Bros., even though those letter combos rarely occur in real usage, so why doesn't ABC get the ABC TV network? And CA becomes what I googled as either Credit Agricole or Chartered Accountancy... Okay, I'm getting out of this hole...
posted by oneswellfoop at 12:28 PM on September 2, 2018

the lowercase i is iomega, as it says it the article.

A long dead brand I was hoping never to have to come face to face with again. Still bitter about Jaz disks 20+ years later.
posted by davros42 at 12:31 PM on September 2, 2018 [4 favorites]

Y'all are a bunch'a font nerds. It's one of the things I love best about you.
posted by theora55 at 12:41 PM on September 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

The CA ligature (seen in "Capitalism") is Crédit Agricole.

They've actually been using that logo for 31 years now. It's somewhat unique as French banks go, being a public limited company in order to give its cooperative French regional banks a vehicle for carrying out major transactions (among other things - the CA Wikipedia article is good).

For true snark via capitalist-doom-typography, the French bank to choose would have been Société Générale.
posted by fraula at 1:01 PM on September 2, 2018

I too am extremely here for the ligatures.
posted by cortex at 4:10 PM on September 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

I am deeply disappointed that I have no software that can create works with this font. This is perhaps reasonable, as I'm working with Word 2010 and Photoshop/InDesign CS2.

I am considering buying Quark Xpress, because I am not forking over $20/month to Adobe in perpetuity. Does anyone know of a cheap/free online school that comes with .edu addresses? The student version is only $80.
posted by ErisLordFreedom at 4:27 PM on September 2, 2018

I too am extremely here for the ligatures.

^ Working title of Sisqo’s “Dipthong Song”
posted by Barack Spinoza at 5:10 PM on September 2, 2018 [2 favorites]

To get the font, you have to give them your email address and then they mail it to you as an attachment, which usually worries me, but I tried it and can testify that it didn't give me any viruses or other malware. Regrettably, it also didn't give me a list of the ligatures. But the email also contains this:

What is Hello Velocity? We are an experimental creative studio started by friends and looking to make more! We love to collaborate so hit us up.
Here are some other things we’ve made:

Bitelabs: A startup soliciting celebrity biopsies to grow celebrity salami.
Gradient: An ecommerce pricing plugin that prices products lower depending on the purchasers income level to improve accessibility for online products.
Piyenji: A curated iOS sticker gallery for digital art.

A promising, yet dangerous group.
posted by oneswellfoop at 6:29 PM on September 2, 2018

Odd that 'VW' isn't a ligature.
posted by motty at 6:48 PM on September 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

There's also be, gq, hp, js, lv, and mb.
posted by motty at 7:03 PM on September 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

If that t-shirt ever gets printed, I am ALL OVER it.
posted by telepanda at 7:32 PM on September 2, 2018

I feel like I've time traveled back to 2001, here. Paging Kalle Lasn?
posted by rokusan at 7:49 PM on September 2, 2018 [1 favorite]

Related: This illustration of an article about a partnership between Google and MasterCard
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:59 PM on September 2, 2018

What's up, bootlickers?
posted by vibratory manner of working at 2:06 PM on September 5, 2018

For prosperty (and so I don't torture myself should I ever look at this thread again in the future:)

Uppercase

A - Adobe
B - Bridgestone Tyres
C - Coca Cola
D - Disney
E - ESPN
F - Fifa
G - Gaterade
H - Hello Velocity
I - Iomega
J - ?
K - Kmart
L - Love's BBQ
M - McDonalds
N - ?
O - Pepsi 0
P - Pirelli
Q - Quinzo's Subs
R - Rockstar
S - Suzuki
T - Tesla
U - Unilever
V - Visa
W - Wilson (sporting goods?)
X - Xbox
Y - Yahoo
Z - Zenith

Lowercase

a - Amazon
b - Beats By Dre
c - Champion
d - Disqus
e - Explorer
f - Facebook
g - Google
h - Hello Velocity
i - LinkedIn
j - Jet.com
k - Kellogs
l - ?
m - Monster
n - Netflix
o - Oracle
p - Paypal
q - Quicktime
r - Reeces Pieces
s - Skype
t - Tumblr
u - ?
v - Vimeo
w - Wordpress
x - 23 & Me
y - YMCA
z - Zillow

Numerals / Symbols

1 - +1 Google
2 - ?
3 - 3 Mobile
4 - Channel 4
5 - HTML 5
6 - Overleaf
7 - 7 Eleven
8 - Super 8 (Motels)
9 - ?
0 - Target
$ - Bitcoin

Thank you everyone who helped me fill in the blanks !
posted by Faintdreams at 8:36 AM on September 17, 2018 [1 favorite]

J = Juventus Football Club
N = Nespresso
l = Lear Corporation
u = Udacity
2 = 2degrees
9 = 9GAG
posted by mbrubeck at 12:52 PM on September 17, 2018