The fourth, and probably final, instalment in the Fringe Typography series.

1. Episode eight of season four starts out normally enough, floating some polymer Helvetica above a motorway…
   

2. …then treating us to a lingering, slightly pervy shot of the back of a Nissan Leap…
   

3. …before finally delivering the gratuitous money-shot we’ve all been waiting for:
   

4. And then finishing up with a loving shot of the dash-mounted GPS/entertainment system, just in case we still had any doubts that we were doing something other than watching a car ad:
   

To say that I was disappointed that Fringe had stooped such egregious product-placement wouldn’t be true. It became apparent some time back that the show’s primary concern wasn’t artistic integrity, and I suppose if you’re not doing it for the art, you may as well be doing it for the money.

(Source: twitter.com)

The third installment of my series on irritating, plastic-Helvetica-stuffed establishing shots from Fringe. This time: season three première “Olivia”. To keep viewers on their toes the producers have mixed it up a little this time with some delightful non-Helvetica.

1. 1985, in Helvetica, on some steampunk-looking screen…

   

2. …which is immediately followed up with Arial. Nothing endears you to a show more than consistent use of grotesks:

   

3. The red title card lets us all know this episode takes place in the scary alternate dimension!

   

4. “Manhatan” (sic). Back in Helvetica — thankfully — but spelled incorrectly. Or perhaps it’s just that evil alternates simply have no use for our effete double consonants?

   

5. Another example of irritating floating text, this time at the Dept[.] of Defense Hospital. At least this time they resisted the temptation to have it reflected on the glass behind it:

   

6. More floaty text, again thankfully free of shadows. Also: bonus points for spelling “Brooklyn” correctly!

   

7. From looking at this one, I’m not entirely sure whether it’s meant to be hovering above, or balanced on top of, the building:

   

8. “The sun filtered gently through the blossoms, softly dappling light atop the Helvetian letters the languished in the shade”:

   

A collection of establishing shots from the two-part season two finalé of Fringe that — you guessed it! — irritatingly stuff giant, bevelled, plastic-looking all-caps Helvetica into the shot. Just to keep things fresh, though, some of these take place in the alternative universe (see if you can guess which ones).

1. New rule to be inferred from the below capture: establishing place should be done with your Xara 3D-rendered Helvetica, but establishing time absolutely must be done using Copperplate Light (because, obviously, using horrible, chunky, floating-in-scene text would just be a hack job, and Fringe is classier that that):

   

2. This seems to be a lazy reuse of an earlier establishing shot which I also hated the first time: 

   

3. You can probably just about walk under this without hitting your head, unless you’re tall (tough shit, Special Agent Broyles):

   

4. This one doesn’t need deserve much in the way of explanation:

   

5. And finally, back to Harvard (this one is in the present, so we don’t need any Copperplate Light)…

   

A selection of establishing shots from Fringe that irritatingly stuff giant, bevelled, plastic-looking all-caps Helvetica into the shot, rather than merely overlaying it.

1. It’s not very visible in the below capture, but the rain is actually landing on, and splashing off, the letters:

   

2. Surely having such fat, heavy-looking text perched half over the edge is unsafe?

   

3. Note rubbish reflection effect:

   

4. We proceed to fly over this miraculously floating text:

   

5. And saving the worst ’til last — huge white letters hovering ominously over New York City:

   

There were many, many more examples I could have used, but after screen-capping my way through the first five episodes, I gave up. It’s just amazing to see Xara 3D being used on such a high-profile, high-budget show.