Ken Kutaragi insisted on Spider-Man font for PS3

by Kevin Kelly on Mar 29th 2007 3:22PM

File this under "Trivia": did you know that since Sony owns the rights to the Spider-Man font, it might have shaped the look and feel of the PlayStation 3? According to CVG, Kutaragi insisted on the use of the font, and it was one of the first design elements chosen for the console.

According to Sony's Teiyu Goto, "If you really look at the PS3 contour carefully, it is rounded when viewing the console in profile. Rather than creating a typography with all the risks that entails, it was wiser to use the one from Spider-Man, for which Sony has the rights."

Er, call us confused, but what are all the risks that creating a new font entails? Death and destruction raining down? Sharp edges? Cats and dogs living together? Thankfully, Kutaragi wasn't a hardcore Comic Sans fan, or who knows what the PS3 would have ended up looking like.

Source

Tags: font, kenkutaragi, Kutaragi, PS2, PS3, Sony, Spider-Man

Reader Comments (55)

I'm pretty sure Microsoft thinks that developing DirectX in another division of their company is a STRENGTH for their 360 division. Likewise I'm pretty sure Sony feels the creative contributions of it's other divisions are a strength for their PS3 division. Move on, boys. This attempt to sully Sony has no traction.

My people, where have you been? I bet most of you bastards are typing on MacBooks or PowerBooks to boot. Great comments. That being said, it's sad Ken decided the PS3 would get "stuck" with typography already tied to another franchise, perhaps with time users will forget the connection. I agree the font and design of the hardware match, but did the font heavily influence that or was it the other way around? It would be nice to get some info from the industrial design guys at Sony's Playstation hardware division responsible for the thing.

Props to ill trooper for the great remarks.

As far as the people not getting the point of this heated debate, that's ok, that's why we're designers and you guys are...normal?

51. Mephistopheles

But even though Marvel owns the characters and concepts these games often have traits that come straight from the films like actor likenesses and vocals. I guess Marvel's ownership supercedes all of that.

I dont like te comic sans font, is to used and i dont like it.
About the ps3 designers using the spiderman font, i chust dont get it. I looks preaty lazy to my what they did considering the team of designers that they have.
However the spiderman font is realy a cool one. Maibe Sony let the spiderman franquise to use it fist to make some kind of advertising and now they are playing with the fame of the font.