SbB Directorate
My typographic ode to science fiction bureaucracy
I’ve built a new typeface over at Fontstruct. Lately, I’ve only been creating one or two modular typefaces a year over there, but from time to time, they hold a themed contest, and it’s fun to try to build a typeface to match up with the chosen topic. For this competition, the theme is “future.”
SbB Directorate is my typographic ode to science fiction bureaucracy. Think of all the government organizations that appear throughout science fiction. The Alliance in Firefly. EarthForce in Babylon 5. The Federation and Starfleet in Star Trek. The New Republic in Star Wars. Some are evil. Others mean well, but they always manage to fall short. I’ve always imagined that these governments all have their own typefaces.
SbB Directorate is named for the Earth Defense Directorate, a hopelessly clueless, quasi-governmental military organization in 1979’s Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. Directorate is angular and constructed, with all sorts of little details in the letterforms. The first draft was a lower case only design, but I decided to add a proper upper case. It will work best large, but it actually holds up surprisingly well in smaller sizes. I also decided that Directorate should be a stencil. I’m pretty sure people in the future won’t need stencils to put lettering on their spaceships, but they always show up in props on old science fiction shows.
You can download SbB Directorate for free over at Fontstruct. You just have to sign up for a free account. I’m really happy with how Directorate turned out. I may create an additional version in Glyphs and add some additional weights and an oblique version.
From top: EarthForce, Babylon 5, Union of Allied Planets, Firefly; Commonwealth, Galactic Cold War Series; Starfleet, Star Trek; Illyrican Empire, Galactic Cold War Series; Earth Defense Directorate, Buck Rogers; Twelve Colonies, Battlestar Galactica.
Bob Wertz writes about design, technology and pop culture at Sketchbook B. Bob is a Columbia, South Carolina-based designer, researcher, college instructor, husband and dad. He’s particularly obsessed with typography, the creative process and the tools we use to create.