From 2020-2021, I had the honor of designing 5 custom typefaces for the book SPIKE by Spike Lee. Aside from the type, I also designed the entire book. In tandem with the release (11.17.2021), I designed VTC Spike, a family with 3 styles. The resulting family is based on the primary headline typeface from the book, both of which are inspired by different aspects of Spike’s career.
The first sources of inspiration were the iconic “LOVE” and “HATE” rings from the iconic film Do The Right Thing. Then there’s the MARS chain from the film She’s Gotta Have It as well as a series of Michael Jordan Nike commercials.
For those who aren’t too familiar with Spike, he’s a huge New York Knicks fan, and a supporter of Black athletes in general. With that in mind, the numbers were inspired by the numbers on Knicks, Michael Jordan, and Jackie Robinson jerseys.
Courtesy of Chronicle Chroma
Courtesy of Chronicle Chroma
Courtesy of Chronicle Chroma
While all of this was great, this headline font needed more in order to represent all of the chapter titles within the book. From there, I began to evaluate Spike’s movie posters and logos, for similarities that can lend themselves to creating one cohesive font.
Above is a typographic tone board consisting of cutouts from different film posters and logos, each consisting of square or geometric counters (the inside of an ‘O’ for example), tying everything together.
Then end result is a font family that not only encompasses Spike’s work thus far, but Spike’s personality as well. This is VTC Spike.