5 posts tagged “arial”

I like Keeley Hawes’s new VO at the beginning of Ashes to Ashes but why replace Helvetica Black (which was around in 1982, even though the cut used last series was not) with Arial Black (which didn’t exist in 1982)?

His Excellency George Fergusson, the British High Commissioner and a fellow alumnus of St Mark’s Church School, did respond to my letter about the status of my Hong Kong Permanent Identity Card—which is far better than one of his predecessors, who ignored me outright when I had a complaint back in 2001.
   It only took a month to get here from the High Commission—which is about an hour’s walk from here—thanks to goofs in the postal system.
   First up, the envelope was misaddressed, to PO Box 14-168 and not 14-368.
   The first postmark, from what I can make out, was February 10. It arrived at box 14-168 and the boxholder wrote, ‘Not @ 14168’, crossing out the incorrect address.
   Sadly, it returned to that box after February 16, the second postmark. The boxholder decided that if the post office could not sort things out, (s)he would. (S)he opened the letter, possibly to find if the address inside was correct (it wasn’t), then Googled me and got the correct information from our website.
   (S)he wrote a Post-It note apologizing for opening it and explaining the circumstances, then re-sealed the envelope and clearly wrote the correct details.
   Sadly, it has taken the post office another two weeks before it arrived March 5.
   I have written to the person at 14-168 to thank him or her for taking the initiative, especially when administrative gaffes made the initial error, then a post office that is probably so automated that, without the human element, keeps making mistakes with its multi-million-dollar mail sorting system.
   The problem is I have put the thank-you note into the post. Do you think it will get there?

Where’s the OHMS

I’ve been talking about all these remakes of late, but one I forgot to mention is a biggie: that time the Germans remade The Love Boat. There are a few differences: Das Traumschiff (it is not called Das Love Boot as The Simpsons once parodied) has been going since 1981 and it has never, unlike the original American version, been shot in a studio. Each season is short because of the lavish location filming—trust the Germans to take a formula and improve on it no end. I think they also managed to keep the cruise director off cocaine.
   The title sequence from the below 2007 special in San Francisco (found on YouTube) is awful, and set in the very un-German Arial Rounded, but even the late Aaron Spelling didn’t beat the money that has been poured in to the 50-plus episodes since the 1980s.
   The Germans’ approach to state TV is: if it works, and it pulls in viewers week after week, then don’t tinker and ruin it. Tatort has been going for God knows how long.
   I prefer my Alarm für Cobra 11, still the perfect car-chase cop show.

The BBC went all out earlier this week with Life on Mars’ second and final season. Before the programme started, the TV ident changed back to 1973’s, with the BBC 1 Colour wording (before that geometric monstrosity that came in 1974). Both are below. It ties in beautifully to earlier promos (above) that had the 1973 style. (BBC Wales did a similar treatment, though with the different aspect ratio of televisions, they are re-creations. In addition, Arial, which the Welsh one is set in, was not designed in 1973.)
   The BBC logo itself lacks a little verisimilitude—the designer seems to have just used Neue Helvetica and slanted it a tad more—but on the lower resolutions of TV screens, few would have really noticed.

   And just to show that humour has not deserted the British, try this Camberwick Green one for size.