CBR Live! Archive
Is Hamlet ripping off Marvel? Srsly!
This weekend I stopped by a friend’s home for dinner. She just came back from London and was raving about seeing the latest production of HAMLET starring Michael Sheen at the Young Vic. Having read loads of Shakespeare back in High School, she knew I’d find the interpretation fascinating, but when she handed me the playbill for the production I was suddenly interested for another reason entirely.
Here’s the cover of the playbill from the Young Vic.
If you’re a comic fan, that logo might remind you of another one.
The sans-serif fonts of both the HAMLET and MARVEL logos do look very similar, but of course Marvel doesn’t have complete ownership of a simple white logo on a red background, as can be seen in the logo from the PBS news magazine Frontline:
Still, I couldn’t help thinking of Marvel when handed that playbill. Especially if you compare the two logos closely — the A and E in both logos appear to be exactly the same. Any of you font fans know which font was used in both logos?
6 Comments
Javier
December 19, 2011 at 11:53 am
http://new.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/
DirtyD
December 19, 2011 at 11:56 am
I’m pretty darn certain “HAMLET” is set in the font Impact, an easy go-to font when you need big and bold.
“MARVEL” is not. Pretty sure it’s set in Benton Sans Extra, but I read that somewhere.
Javier
December 19, 2011 at 11:59 am
Great Escape Narrow Black (from Typodermic Great Escape)
The one from Hamlet
McChesney Regular (from T-26 McChesney)
OR
Almonte (from Larabie Almonte)
The one from Marvel
Jonah Weiland
December 19, 2011 at 12:06 pm
When I checked What The Font (Thanks Javier!) it identified the Hamley logo as Impact, which DirtyD pointed out. Not sure about Marvel.
Still, they sure do look similar!
Cole Moore Odell
December 19, 2011 at 12:17 pm
The “A”s are not that similar at all.The negative interior spaces of the Hamlet version are far more narrow and taller; the tip of the triangle extends closer to the top.
Enzo Speaks
May 5, 2012 at 7:11 pm
red red I want red