Kidnap the Magic: The Art of the Disneyland Font (Part 2)

So I called a general meeting of the blog staff, which was pretty easy since this is a one-woman show. We—that is, I—came to the conclusion that we should move the weekly post from Sundays to Mondays. The benefit to us—me—is that if I'm running a little low on inspiration, I have the whole weekend to cram instead of just Saturday. The benefit to you is that this post is up now, instead of six days from now.

I am assuming, of course, that anyone is still here. So...is anyone still here? Sorry to leave you all hanging like that, but you know how the holidays can be. What was I talking about again? Oh, right—fonts you can use for Disneyland-related printed projects!

The nice thing about designing text for Frontierland is that many online font archives have a category called “Western.” There is no one description of such fonts, more of a continuum of design features, but common elements include thick horizontal strokes contrasted with thin vertical ones, forked serifs, and little “spurs” (possible pun?) placed at about the midpoint of the vertical lines. Weathered letters and letters made from planks also bring across an Old West atmosphere. You have a lot of options here.

Western dingbats are also reasonably common, but here you should be more selective. Look for images that seem like they could actually have been produced in the time period of the Old West—ones that mimic the appearance of early photographs, newspaper prints, and Native American artwork, rather than cartoons. And of course David Occhino has another piece of outstanding (free!) work for us, Big Thunder Dingbats. While you're at it, if you have the means, you may as well go ahead and purchase the associated lettering, simply known as Big Thunder.

Fantasyland is another area where the choices for lettering styles are obvious...at first. Go ahead and start with “medieval” lettering—gothic, blackletter, fraktur, whatever you choose to call it—but nothing too heavy or ornate, which could detract from the child-friendly atmosphere. One absolutely lovely (and free!) choice is Bradley, which is actually used in various Fantasyland contexts, such as the books of the Sleeping Beauty Castle walkthrough and Mr. Toad's coat of arms. If that one doesn't do it for you, however, medieval-style fonts are extremely common, and you're bound to find something that suits you better.

I would be remiss if I didn't mention JLR Mouse House, a freebie that places the capitals of the Disneyland logo lettering against silhouettes of a castle—it's proportioned more like Orlando's castle than Anaheim's, but this would still look great as the first letter of a paragraph where Kingdom or one of its clones was the main font.

Of course, there is far more to the themes of Fantasyland than medieval castles. You could go in a more whimsical, storybook direction with fonts like the one named, appropriately, Storybook. Don't expect to find much in the way of specific attraction sign lettering, though. Although Fantasyland includes more film-based attractions than any other land, they all more-or-less predate the era we find ourselves in wherein film titles are designed as recognizable logos in themselves—that is, the attraction signs do not tend to use lettering inherently associated with the movies on which they are based, and if you're hoping for exact matches, you'll have your work cut out for you trying to find them. You're better off going the thematic route—circus poster-style lettering for the Dumbo attractions, sparkly letters for pixie dust, etc.

When it comes to dingbats, however, thematic isn't quite sufficient: you need the characters. And that can be tricky, since not many Disney character dingbat fonts exist. Fortunately, I am here for you, and I have discovered some good ones. For characters likely to appear in Fantasyland, start with Princes and then comb through Disney family 1 for the stragglers. You can also find examples of fonts that combine lettering with pictures of characters; designer ArtsyLady offers us a few which, like JLR Mouse House, might be best as paragraph initials.

What else? When it comes to images that evoke Fantasyland without being tied to any specific movie...how about heraldry? A row of decorated shields is magnificently emblematic of not just olden days of knights and princesses and castles, but specifically the tournament—the original medieval fun fair. How Disneyland is that? Fonts depicting such shields are more common than you might think.

Actually, here's one of my favorite examples: Kantonswappen CHFL. Look familiar? It should if you've read my earlier double post about heraldry in Fantasyland. These are the coats of arms for the cantons of Switzerland. Shields with these very images—in full color, of course—decorate the queue chalet for the Matterhorn Bobsleds. If you download just one heraldry font for your Fantasyland needs, it should definitely be this one.

Before we leave Fantasyland, here's a real treat: the Blairesque font family. If you don't recognize the lettering and the name doesn't tip you off, that collection of dingbats ought to be the clincher. This website makes you jump through a few simple hoops in order to download, but I guarantee it will be worth every click.

Mickey's Toontown is actually surprisingly easy to find fonts for, especially considering how focused its theme is. When it comes to lettering, Mickey, Minnie and Donald all have fonts named in their honor. This is also where I'd use Waltograph or one of its imitators—Walt Disney's handwriting didn't really look like the company logo, but judging by some of the articles in Mickey's House, Mickey Mouse's “official” handwriting does.

If none of these suits your purpose, there are loads of fonts out there that mimic comic book-style printing or slightly off-kilter handwritten lettering. Hunt around the “handwritten” or “cartoon” sections of any decently sized font archive until you find perfection.

Dingbats featuring images of the classic characters are also not hard to come by. Mickey Mousebats, CartoonMickey, CartoonDonald, and the wonderful surprise Vintage Classics Disney are among the standouts. Poke around and see what else you can find. (And if you need more help, I'm always a comment away!)

Most large font archives have a category called “Futuristic” or something similar, full of boxy, sharp-cornered, sans-serif typefaces such as might be reproduced by precision machines. Ironically, lettering typical of early computer monitors is also sometimes included in this category, hearkening back to several decades ago when digital text displays were themselves the stuff of science-fiction coming to life, never mind that the letters were blocky and ungraceful. On the grounds that classic Tomorrowland is itself a product of this era, I see no reason not to take these concepts and run with them.

That said, it's interesting to note that a lot of Tomorrowland signage, both then and now, actually uses very plain lettering—simple sans-serif block print, without much personality, reflecting (I suppose) an ideal of pragmatism and elegant simplicity. The dressier fonts are a lot more fun, of course, but your projects will still look just as Tomorrowland-ish if you restrict said fonts to titles and the like, and use something like Verdana for your main text.

Okay, you say, but are there any fonts specifically designed for Tomorrowland and/or its individual attractions? So glad you asked! The best one from a Disneyland perspective is probably Space Station 77, which, as its name suggests, replicates the Space Mountain title font. If you don't mind borrowing from Orlando, the Seized Future font family was created in honor of the defunct Alien Encounter attraction. And then there's Prototype, which isn't technically from Tomorrowland* but definitely partakes of the same zeitgeist—it's the lettering used on signs in Epcot's FutureWorld.

Dingbats are, again, pretty easy—seek out images of planets and galaxies, rocket ships and circuit boards, and plain old science!

You'll notice that so far I have avoided mentioning the elephant in the Tomorrowland room: the IP creep. If you need to include Nemo and Buzz Lightyear in your design work in order to feel like it's properly Tomorrowland-ish, there are certainly fonts out there that will serve that purpose. I personally like to honor the Subs, with or without Nemo, with Maritime Flags, a font of the flag alphabet used for visual communication between ships.

As for that other prominent Tomorrowland IP...

It will be upon us soon enough. Whatever our misgivings about this move on Disney's part, at least the franchise is old and popular enough that it has been memoralized in font form repeatedly. Whether you're looking for the famously distinctive title lettering, the fictional scripts used within the Star Wars universe, or pictures of the characters and starships, a simple Google search should bring you exactly what you need.

May the New Year bring you endless inspiration!

* The website claims it is used there, but I don't think I've ever seen it...at least in Anaheim.