Journal Entry 5: Bryan Fuller: Comedic Genius or Typographic Eff Up?

So, I am a huge HUGE fan of Bryan Fuller. For those of you who don't know about Bryan Fuller's work, he created/wrote the series Dead Like Me and Pushing Daisies; he was an executive producer to both Heroes and Wonderfalls, amongst other things. He has always had a very free-thinking, zany take on things (which is why I think his shows appeal so much to me). Anyway, one of my very good friends recently let me borrow seasons 1 and 2 of Pushing Daisies to watch over Spring Break. I took one look at the packaging and fell even more in love with this series. Let's start by taking a look at the covers. DISCLAIMER! I only own a very old, very crappy point and shoot camera with an obnoxious flash. While I did take all of these pictures myself, I do not take responsibility for their horrible quality. ;) Please feel free to click on the pictures to blow them up to see the horrible quality in detail.

So here we have the covers for both seasons. As you can see, the same pattern was followed for both seasons: the same title, the same call out/tagline, but different images. I really like the way the covers are set up. They have a very clear hierarchy. The "complete 1/2 season" is a really nice visual lead in that draws the eye down and balances out the title with the image. If this call out were below the title, it wouldn't have worked nearly as well. As far as the typeface selection goes, I love the organic-ness of the title. It's loose, edgy, and fun...just like the show. The call out typeface, however, is what I'd like to address....It's a very familiar, overused typeface. I think that the designers were trying to go for a similar tone as the title. It was a pretty hit-and-miss kind of thing, and I have to sound like a debbie downer and say it was a "Miss". Let's look at the DVD case covers for season 1.

This side of the packaging requires a little knowledge of the show to understand. The main character, Ned, runs a pie house called The Pie Hole. Their delivery pies are placed in big wooden boxes with this emblem on the front. Anyway, the word logo, "The Pie Hole" is used very consistently throughout the show. Anything that could say "The Pie Hole" has this logo on it. I really like the cursive, as it is delicate, yet "confident" (if text could be so). It is nice and bold and legible. However, I wish they had worked on the balance between each word. "The" and "Pie" are incredibly close, almost one word, while "Pie" and "Hole" are very separated. This is kind of awkward. Also, I'm not sure I would have gone for red over the pink circle. That's just an odd color choice. As for the back, I was happy to see them continue that same cursive on to the backside. I also love the little "Remember" message at the bottom. The image frames the text nicely, and I really like the white beige space that is used on the back, but I don't like it centered! It would look better left-aligned. Moving on to the interior of Season 1...

As you can see, the title/call out carries on to the DVDs themselves (and they look like pies...yum!). You can also see the Pie Hole emblem on the "Menu" that houses all the episode information (we'll see that later). I like the consistency and the overall concept, but I can't stand that menu typeface! It is on the list of taboo typefaces for me. It's so familiar and overused I can't stand it. I find it very spiky, crabby looking, and ugly. To achieve real unity, they should have used a more organic typeface, one that tied in better with the title. The only other thing I have to say about this is that the color choice was superb. It pairs nicely with the rest of the packaging. Like I said before, I absolutely love the packaging concept but some of it was poorly executed. Moving on to Season 2.

Here we have the interior DVD case cover for season 2. The reason it is a honeycomb is because the female lead, Chuck, keeps bees and uses their honey to help Ned's pie business. It's kind of her signature thing, especially in the episodes all about bees! Anyway, there's only one picture here because the backside of the case has no type and the interior wasn't that exciting, or rather, it didn't fit in with the rest of the packaging as well as season 1 did. Anyway, this is what caught my eye most about the whole set. I love the way they distorted the title to actually look like it is underneath the honey. Using the original title creates that sense of unity, while altering it in this way gives it its own variety...very well balanced principles! Coming from a technical standpoint, I can imagine this was a very hard look to achieve. It was executed very well and is very believable. It is very succinct with the tone/idea of the show. For typography like this, that is what makes it most successful! Finally, let's look at the interior of the "Menu" for season 2.

I was able to scan this one so it looks a little better than the rest. :) Anyway, I really like the type-image relationship with this. The images are well balanced with the text...they both share the limelight and neither steals too much. I really like the actors' pictures in the honeycombs, which is a nice unifying touch. We again see the cursive text from the first season, which ties them both together. I also appreciate their use of different text within the episode listings...it gives it a lot of visual variety and makes it interesting to look at, rather than just one stagnant block of text.

Overall, these examples were very successful: brilliant package design and concept, great unity and variety, great color choices, excellent type-image relationship. There was one major problem with both of these packages though: use of overused, overfamiliar, and basically-for-lack-of-a-better-word, crappy text. But Bryan Fuller's shows are notorious for this! For example...Dead Like Me....


Chiller? Seriously? Bryan Fuller, your shows are the most original things I've ever seen in my life....can we get some original typography too? :)