Font Files: "How To Get Away With Murder"
Thanks to a rainy day, I just caught up on ABC's new show How to Get Away with Murder. It stars Viola Davis, as a no-nonsense Philadelphia criminal law professor and attorney, and Harry Potter alum Alfred Enoch as her student. Basically, it has the three-pronged key to my heart: Philly, Harry Potter, and a strong female lead.
I also really like that the show plays with chronology to mash up different story lines alongside a weekly law procedural. It makes for a very twisty, time-warp-y mystery. It surprises me that a show with such a layered, complex story line and powerful casting like Davis would have the MOST BORING TITLE SHOT IN THE WORLD.
I mean, come on. The title looks like Albertus typeface, which was created in the 1940's (snooze), made to resemble letters carved into bronze (yawn), and named after a 13th century philosopher (Zzz). Albertus has been used on British coinage and street signs, in the Hobbit film series and on plenty of Coldplay album covers. In short, it's meant to look serious and traditional, so old it could've been used in Middle Earth 6,000 years ago, and a little tame (sorry, Chris Martin).
It doesn't exactly scream "must-watch modern television." This title doesn't even take advantage of its chalkboard background. And why is the font so small? At least the exciting, racy promo logo used the much more modern Century type and added a twist at the end, even if it didn't use the shot of the professor's chalkboard.
Personally, I think these typefaces, along with the passionate pop of red, are much more representative of the series so far. If I didn't have another episode to watch, I'd write a strongly worded letter to ABC suggesting they at least use Viola Davis' bad-ass chalkboard handwriting.