Sign typography

Following Friday's production meeting I have a few more specific tasks to be getting on with. Whilst the 3D team are modeling the environment I will be taking photographs to texture the assets with and maybe help with any long shot after effects compositions. I plan to go to Manchester, Salford and Liverpool and will try to get a variety of skyscrapers, buildings, windows, doors, textures, rubble etc. A lot of the shots will be interior and unfortunately I probably won't be able to provide all the textures needed for that but I will try and get as many original images as possible.

The final shot in the film is a ground level shot of the derelict city, with the camera stopping on a sign that says 'fin'. It was decided on Friday that the full sign would read 'infinity' and 'fin' would be highlighted, the obvious choice is to model a neon sign with just 'fin' lit up.
Perhaps 'infinity' could be a club or bar? quite a classy place that would use quite cool typography and contrast with the grungy derelict city.
I have been researching a few examples of neon signs that are more interesting than the single bent line where all the letters are joined together and have found some nice art deco style type that would link to the 1920's style skyscraper where the 4 lads start off. The xbox game 'Bioshock' has some really nice design in this style (as it is set in an underwater art/science ex-paradise 'rapture' in that period) and that was the first thing that came to mind, the whole game had great contrast between derelict overgrown destroyed environments and really classy retro design. I found a free font called selznick which is based on 'anna' (which would cost about £20) and looks like the typography on 1920s film posters and other design in that stlye. I will start sketching out some ideas and maybe mock up some photoshop/AE scenes

The flickr account has reached it's limits for this month so we won't be able to upload any images until next week so I've made some contact sheets of some of my research images:



































(the horrible compression might make these unreadable - click to enlarge)

For the actual modelling I think something like the 'Bakery luncheon' sign would be good. It is simple and chunky, has interesting typography that can easily be altered and has neon lights following the outline. The Selznick font would be perfect for this, but I will try a few others 'Gainsborough' springs to mind as it has large geometric forms and has some similar characterisits and may work better as it isn't quite so condensed.