How bold can Darth Vader be?
The above word-cartoon is the end result of that quote rolling around in my head for weeks. I’m not sure how successful it ended up being, but I know there’s a font pun to be made somehow with that line.
I started out trying to literally depict that scene from Star Wars using letterforms, intending to use bold letters for Vader and light letters for Princess Leia. I loved the idea of the @ sign filling in for Leia’s hair bun. But after a few attempts I concluded that I’m no LIDA when it comes to making art from letters. I just couldn’t get the fabric to look like fabric without making the entire thing out of parentheses and tildes of various sizes. And that kind of misses the point. The letter “M” sort of did what I wanted, but not really. It’s too rigid.
Then I wondered if maybe I needed to stop trying to depict the scene from the movie, and just draw Darth Vader alone, made out of bold type. In many ways it’s the most visually striking of the attempts, but I felt like I overlapped the letterforms so much in his helmet that they were becoming mere shapes rather than letters. But here’s how that ended up:
So ultimately I decided to just use different fonts and weights to write their names (seen at the top of this post). But just floating in the frame without a sense of place, I’m not convinced that works, either. And it’s less amazing than pictures made of letters.
Comments
I have to say, Vader looks incredible. The _one_ change I would make would be to use a single, large character for the lightsaber, and not equal signs.
Posted by: Alan | May 8, 2008 12:24 PM
I rather like the top graphic. It doesn’t oversell the joke.
Posted by: the Rising Jurist | May 8, 2008 12:45 PM
Darth Vader looks great, but come on. Leia wasn’t nearly that much of a chub-o.
Posted by: Kit | May 8, 2008 1:46 PM
The Vadar is great, but until I actually read it I had no idea it was Leia. I thought it looked more like an X-Wing or Snow Speeder Pilot with their big bulbous helmets. The back part is a little Boba Fett rocketpack-esqe
But yeah, Vadar is rockin.
Posted by: Josh | May 8, 2008 4:40 PM
I think it’s hilarious. Good job.
Posted by: pete | May 8, 2008 8:12 PM
WOW! Good job!
Posted by: Dushan Hanuska | May 8, 2008 9:57 PM
Nice… I did something very similar today (typography star wars) and came home and saw this. what a trip!
http://cabin2j.blogspot.com/
if you want to check out what i did.
Posted by: Justin Crisostomo | May 9, 2008 4:08 AM
For another take on this, take a look at http://asciimation.co.nz/
Posted by: Bill Tucker | May 9, 2008 4:08 AM
I gotta say, that Vader is really badass. I agree with Kit that Leia looks too chubby, but still a good job.
Posted by: Alok | May 9, 2008 4:12 AM
Very, very nice typographic pun! I made a (sort of) response to it here:
http://johneats.blogspot.com/2008/05/adventures-in-design-world-how-bold-can.html
Posted by: JohnEats | May 9, 2008 8:05 AM
☠★
Posted by: Carl Jonard | May 9, 2008 10:59 AM
Now, see, if more people spent their time doing productive and creative things like this, the world would be a far more peaceful place.
You should do seminars on this stuff.
Posted by: Miss Debater | May 10, 2008 3:27 PM
This is so cool!
Posted by: Caitlin | May 11, 2008 9:53 AM