The Fonts of a Showgirl
Unpacking the type choices from Taylor Swift’s album The Life of a Showgirl lyric videos
This past weekend along with the release of the album I went to see the accompanying movie. It was fun to get a peek behind the curtain on the album release and the process behind making the video for The Fate of Ophelia.
What really struck me as I was watching was “hey, I recognize these fonts” 😂. That likely says more about me, but I was trying to remember as many of them as I could. When I got home I found each of the lyric videos on youtube and took a closer look. I was pleasantly surprised that all the fonts are available to use on Adobe Fonts.
Now this isn’t the first time I’ve taken a look at Taylor (and her creative team)’s choices for fonts. You can take a look at as many of the fonts from her albums that I’ve been able to find.
Jake Make Type Work
Let’s get into each of The Life of a Showgirl lyric videos and the font’s used:
The Fate of Ophelia (Lyric Video)
Fleur
Fleur Bold from Sproviero Type is featured as both the title and lyrics font. It seems to also have a stroke applied to make it a little bolder than the actual font. It has a whimsical but elegant vibe with the swash capitals (which will become one of the themes we see used a throughout the album).
Noting that the lyric video wasn’t shown in the movie given the music video is featured heavily instead, but I found there was still also a lyric video made to complete out the album.
You can watch The Fate of Ophelia (Lyric Video) on youtube.
Elizabeth Taylor (Lyric Video)
TT Modernoir
TypeType’s Modernoir brings the second theme — Art Deco / Art Nouveau style type. These art movements of the twentieth century brought with them dynamic, asymmetric, curved letterforms. They were also often used for signage for glamorous theaters so we can assume this is a nod to the showgirls.
Modernoir Bold is used for the title and the Regular weight is used for the lyrics. Both are set in all caps (but Modernoir is an all caps font anyway).
You can watch Elizabeth Taylor (Lyric Video) on youtube.
Opalite (Lyric Video)
Gazzetta
Gazzetta Variable from TipoType is also the font from the album cover and thus has become pretty well known. The big different here is the typesetting, as here we see it not set in all caps, so we get to see a lot more of the font’s personality.
The title uses Gazzetta ExtraLight with the lowercase ‘a’ swapped for the single story alternate version. The lyrics use the Light weight.
You can watch Opalite (Lyric Video) on youtube.
Father Figure (Lyric Video)
Quiche Sans
Quiche Sans from Adam Ladd is actually one of my go-to high contrast sans serif fonts. This was even my suggestion for a similar font to Carla Sans, which was used for Fearless (Taylor’s Version). Quiche Sans Bold Italic is used here now perhaps referencing back to some of that styling.
You can watch Father Figure (Lyric Video) on youtube.
Eldest Daughter (Lyric Video)
Lust Didone (title)
Superior Title (lyrics)
Lust Didone from Positype is part of the larger Lust family. This Didone style refers to type from the beginning of the nineteenth century from Didot and Bodoni. Those with keen eyes will also notice this is a similar vibe as the type used for the Eras Tour branding, albeit not set in all caps. For the video title this is used with a stroke applied to make it quite a bit bolder. This generally isn’t recommended given it applies weight evenly across the characters which isn’t how bolder fonts are designed, but I think it works ok here and gets around some of the thin parts of the letters not falling away.
Superior Title Medium from MCKL is used for the captions. This, whilst a 'title' font, is more legible than Lust Didone for this use and given the lyrics are shown pretty large works well. This does also share some similarities to
You can watch Eldest Daughter (Lyric Video) on youtube.
Ruin The Friendship (Lyric Video)
Desire Pro
Desire from Borges Lettering & Design goes back to our first theme with the elegant swashes. Note that these are not on by default (as you can see from the more plain lyrics) and have to be enabled in the OpenType features to show. The swash on the 't' in the title is also slightly customized compared to the options available in the font. The version I show here is what is available in the font but they have customized to remove the extra flourish overlap and add an extra swirl.
You can watch Ruin The Friendship (Lyric Video) on youtube.
Actually Romantic (Lyric Video)
Rafaella
We’re keeping the theme going with another fun swashy serif font, and another from Sproviero Type at that too — Rafaella Bold. This time we have a bit of a slant to the letters and a bit more of a softer vibe overall as they have less contrast.
You can watch Actually Romantic (Lyric Video) on youtube.
Wi$h Li$t (Lyric Video)
Quiche Sans (title)
Libre Bodoni (lyrics)
The Black weight of Quiche Sans is used this time and obviously the motif of replacing all the S’s with $ is used throughout. It is a fun little alignment for the title too with the dollar signs being connected.
Libre Bodoni Bold Italic is used for the lyrics set in all caps.
You can watch Wi$h Li$t (Lyric Video) on youtube.
Wood (Lyric Video)
Juniper
The use of Juniper from Adobe Originals for the title and lyrics of Wood stands out as a little different to the others. It has a much more vintage / 50’s feel to it which we’ve not really seen employed by Taylor before, but it is generally pretty trendy rn.
You can watch Wood (Lyric Video) on youtube.
CANCELLED! (Lyric Video)
Amador (title)
Bradley DJR (lyrics)
Here we cannot ignore the reference back to the Reputation era with the use of two blackletter fonts. Along with Wood, these two are styled differently from any of the other type themes used throughout the album.
Amador from Parkinson Type Design is used for the title and DJR’s Bradley is used for the lyrics.
You can watch Cancelled! (Lyric Video) on youtube.
Honey (Lyric Video)
New Order
New Order Bold from Newlyn somewhat fits in with the vibe from Elizabeth Taylor although the vibe a little more refined and simple. The geometric sans serif letterforms still do pack in the retro personality though.
You can watch Honey (Lyric Video) on youtube.
The Life of a Showgirl (Feat. Sabrina Carpenter) (Lyric Video)
Casablanca URW
For the final track we return to the Art Deco / Art Nouveau vibe with Casablanca Light from URW. Interestingly this was used for the design for the 1995 movie 'Showgirls' (at least the Condensed version of Casablanca) so I’m curious if that was used as a reference here!
You can watch The Life of a Showgirl (Lyric Video) on youtube.
It’s been a while since I’ve written on here so this was a good kick to get back to sharing and a fun challenge to investigate!