Introduction

 Font

Introduction

Thanks to a suggestion by Gerry Kissell of the online magazine BladeZone (http://www.bladezone.com) and the success of my previous freeware, the Blade Runner Movie Font, I have decided to release a second font based on the lettering seen on the police Spinner and several ground cars in the movie Blade Runner.

See the special instructions below in order to access specific glyphs that are included with this release.

Special Instructions

The Spinner Font includes several special characters. Their locations are mapped out in the list below:

1  The English ‘Police 995’ symbol is located in the uppercase register under the ‘ @’ symbol.

2  The Japanese  ‘Police 995’ symbol can be found in the uppercase register under the ‘~’ symbol.

3  The Japanese  police symbol can be found in the uppercase register under the ‘#’ symbol.

4  The Spinner logo can be found in the uppercase register under the ‘^’ symbol.

The Spinner Font Project

I created the Spinner font as a gift to fans of the movie Blade Runner.

The Making of the Spinner Font

I started by scanning a picture of Ridley Scott in front of a Spinner with the lettering on the door clearly visible. Then, using the scanned image as a template to draw over, I manually traced over each letter using vector graphics in CorelDRAW 9. I then extrapolated the appearance of the remaining letters based on the initial eight characters  ( [image], [image], [image], [image], [image], [image], [image], [image]). Once I had finished all 40 alphanumeric characters (including the various spinner and police logos) I exported each letter individually as an Adobe Illustrator 7 file (this is essentially an EPS [encapsulated postscript] file). Next, I imported all of the Illustrator files into Macromedia’s Fontographer font program one by one. Once in Fontographer, I cleaned up each letter individually and added stylized parentheses, brackets, etc. to complete the effect.

The Spinner Font is Freeware

Although this effort took dozens of hours to complete I’m releasing my work as freeware - for the love of Blade Runner. I wanted to contribute to what I believe to be one of the greatest works of science fiction. Besides, I didn’t ask for or receive permission to use the Blade Runner or Spinner name. If you have any further questions, comments, or simply want all the source files please e-mail me at philips@pressroom.com. If you use this font please try to fit my name in somewhere. Also, if you get a chance, send me an e-mail if you decide to use this font in a place that is publicly accessible so that I might take a look at it.

Dedication

This font is dedicated to Philip K. Dick, Ridley Scott, Michael Deeley, Hampton Fancher, David Peoples, Syd Mead, Rutger Hauer, Harrision Ford and all the rest of the people who made or contributed to the Blade Runner magic. Special thanks go to Tom Southwell who created the police logos upon which this font is based. Thank you.

For More Information

All questions, answers, comments, or requests should be directed to Phil Steinschneider at philips@pressroom.com.

On the Web

The Spinner and Blade Runner Movie fonts are also officially available on the web at one or both of the following locations:

http://www.steinschneider.com/bladerunner/BRFont.htm

http://www.pressroom.com/~philips/BRFont.htm