What do people think about 'shatter' the Helix ruler typeface.

http://www.linotype.com/12027/shatter-font.html

Maybe Linotype's Sangue?

hhp

How about Adobe Quake?

Also, here is Hrant's suggestion "Sangue" which has a midevil quality.

Oh, I don't know, how about Trajan, because it's used on every goddamn horror movie ever made in the last 20 years?

Scary, isn�t it Ralph? ;-)

Trajan doesn't scare me nearly as much as Peignot.

Hopefully this isn't too clich�, but perhaps something like Tim Donaldson's Spooky?

from the shatter site:

Shatter is an experimental font from Vic Carless, designed in 1973. Despite the centuries between the year of its creation and today, the font still has a distinctly modern feel.

I guess 1973 technically was another century...

I'm with Raph's Trajan nomination here. It's those serifs. It's nasty, calculated serial killer stuff. Hannibal Lecter and what-not. It does seem to be becoming one of those "y'know, it's just used for that kind of thing and that's that". It's on a billion books about everything too.

Trajan is good. Another possibility would be some very narrow font.

Maybe a few knows that Aldo Novarese survived to a bomb
covered by some dead bodies.

I Think shatter is my favourite so far. It avoids all the predictables, it looks fresh too.

TMF Brutaal at your service:



hhp

Blackletter (and BL-inspired work, like that of Margo Chase and Mr. Hrant Papazian) always scares the crap out of me. But then, I'm Jewish. Real, true, visceral fear is partly a cultural construct, so some of these might only scare the crap out of some people.

I think you're certainly right that culture is a huge factor - for example certain Thai forms look decidedly evil to me even when they're actually divine for Thais! But there are also physicaly realities that all people share (since we're all human animals after all). For example that sharp things hurt. And that an upper overbite is sinister (picture an eagle's beak) while a lower overbite is carnal (think of an ape's snout). I've used things like this in my Daam Entity.

BTW, drop the salutation and surname, habeebi! :-)

hhp

i love that one, nick. saw that on yer site the other day. definately added to my list of faces to license...

I'd think fear would be best implied in a subtle manner, I can see how Trajan would have a more powerful impact than something that blantly tried to "look" like fear, whatever that may be.

Now Wedding Text, for instance; there is real substantial fear there that transcends the extraordinary.

Courier scares me if its print job I have designed. ;op

>Now Wedding Text, for instance; there is real substantial fear there that transcends the extraordinary.<

LOL!!!

Seeing Adobe Sans and Adobe Serif on a job...

So, Marc, are you looking for 'fear' as in "this inspires fear within me" or "this communicates what it is like to feel fear"?

Or am I getting overly specific?