Blade Runner 30th Anniversary Police ID

[SynaMax]

"I'm Deckard. Blade Runner. Two sixty-three fifty-four. I'm filed and monitored."

I was recently introduced to Blade Runner about a year or two ago by my best friend and I was absolutely hooked. This movie is like a good wine; it gets better and better each and every year. This movie has some fantastic props, and one of my favorites is the Police ID that can be briefly seen in Deckard's wallet. After seeing Karl Tate's fantastic Worldcon photos, I got inspired and decided to make THE definitive Blade Runner ID.

This build would have not been possible if it wasn't for phase pistols advice, pictures and resources. He's truly one of the best members here on PropSummit and the RPF and he deserves a lot of kudos for his work.

After talking with Karl on the graphics and dimensions on the ID, I made a vector file in Inkscape. I constantly fell back on reference pictures and meticulously rescale and redrew graphics until I got it as accurate as I can get it to the Worldcon ID. The result, I think is really epic:



I'm very proud of how the "circle circuit" and the "line diamond" came out...the "8" also looks fantastic, IMO.



The font for the English text on the back of the card proved to be surprisingly challenging as several glyphs didn't match up with the main font. I think Tom Southwell must've cut up different Letrasets fonts and pasted them together to make the text here.



To top it off, I got some real rubylith and laminated the card with three layers: the ID graphics, the Rubylith X and a picture (not my favorite pic of myself but I wanted to do a proof-of-concept in a hurry).

Overall, I'm very proud of how the ID turned out. I'm going to be offering a couple of runs of these IDs on the RPF, as well as here very soon and you can have the option of getting a Deckard ID or even a personalized one, like my ID pictured above. I'm hoping to get some rare Amberlith very soon, just for this run!

I hope you guys like it!

[joberg]

Good stuff, very pro-looking for sure

[Staar]

Excellent piece of work and many thanks for sharing.

High regards
MARK
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[SynaMax]

Thanks a lot, joberg and Mark! I really appreciate it

[amfx74]

Looks great, very clean. Nice work.

[clutch]

That flat out rocks. Excellent work!

[andy]

Nice work Max.

Andy

[SynaMax]

Thanks a lot guys! I'm really glad you're all enjoying the ID.

I'm still waiting on the amberlith...hopefully it'll come in tomorrow.

[jakob2121]

Let me echo the sentiment here and say that is fantastic. Always great to see such attention to detail.

[SynaMax]

Thanks a lot, jakob!

The amberlith finally arrived!! Ulano stopped making this stuff around '08 because the dye they used didn't exist anymore, but the tech guy I talked to said he had some left that he was about to throw out and he gave it to me instead. I'm giving him a free ID card in return.





Cutting, cutting, cutting!



And here's the final ID right before lamination! I don't have a working laminator so I'll have to seal these babies at work tomorrow, haha.



Here's some of the first IDs I've done so far. I didn't know how to cut the amberlith exactly, so the first ID's X looks crappy but now I got it down.



I need a new blaster. LOL XD



If my first laminating job is satisfactory, I'll be offering these IDs within the week.

[joberg]

Good job on the I.D. Glad to see that you got a statch of Ulano to complete your prop! It's great to get genuine stuff from the '80s to make sure your props are as close as possible from the real article.
Good luck with the sale btw

[Replicant 13]

Max -

Just happened upon your post this AM. Nice work! Always glad to see a fellow artist who has the old skills, as well as the new ones - and an eye for detail.

I noted your comment about Southwell's possible "creative" use of Letraset. I agree.

Having cut teeth in advertising in the early 80's, it was often necessary to augment your efforts when the transfer type available to you lacked the letters you needed, or (as was too often the case) became brittle and unusable. However, as I mentioned in my post earlier, when working up my magazine covers I discovered there were also certain characters available then that were (sadly) dropped from font families when some foundries made the transition to digital. That along with creative license might be at issue here as well.

Good luck. I look forward to see what else you might tackle . . .

Have A Better One - R13
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Gosh, you've really got some nice toys here . . .

[joberg]

Right you are Rep13 and Max...with the Letraset he could've mix and match fonts for sure. As the proud proprietor of a huge stack of Letraset sheets from the '70s and '80s I can say for sure that this collection has a "best before date" on them. Despite keeping them in a constant warm temp/humidity they tend to become brittle anyway and some special fonts are not beeing reproduced at all in electronic form 'specially the special designs that were sent to various clients in preparation of a run...or not.

[Replicant 13]

This may well have been covered before, elsewhere on PS, and I do not want to turn SynaMax's post into a font discussion, so one last example for those interested in this one aspect of reproducing paper props. I spent considerable time trying to find the exact font and version for the covers before I stumbled upon the reason I had failed.

As evidenced by the image shown below, one font Southwell used repeatedly was ITC Rhonda (shown) and Serif Gothic. As used on the DROID and MONI covers - the latter circled here in blue - certain characters (Rhonda's rounded cap "M" and SG's angled lowercase "e") are alternates not currently included in the digital form, as available through sites like FONTS.com.



This was the first omission I discovered, verified within an online design discussion noting omissions and changes to digital font families, Rhonda having previously been used on a certain movie poster from the 70's . . .

http://typophile.com/node/65835

Now I must return the focus back to Max's excellent efforts - R13
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Gosh, you've really got some nice toys here . . .

[joberg]

Good info Rep13 The lack of original fonts adds to the challenge of producing screen accurate paper prop. That's why I admire Max, you and others here on this board, to have the patience to research every little details that makes for great work: kudos to you guys

[Feuyaer]

Very cool - good work!

Forgive me if you guys mentioned it, but have you tried http://www.myfonts.com/WhatTheFont/ specifically for the M and E to find out what they are from?

The angled lowercase E is either:
http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/marksimonson/coquette/regular/

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/t26/mink/regular/

or

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/spiecegraphics/pacific-clipper-sg/pacific-clipper-bk-sg/


The closest I could come for the uppercase M is

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/ywft/unisect/ex-bold/

But it's too stubby....hmmm
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[joberg]

Good stuff Feuyaer...e seems like Mink regular but less bold.

[Replicant 13]

Thanks all, but I feel like we're sidetracking this thread now. Sorry Max.

That said, I will limit my further comments here, and instead move the font discussion to my thread in THE PROP SHOP > Paper Props - The Magazines.

If you're interested, perhaps we can continue there -

http://www.propsummit.com/viewtopic.php?p=49567#4956 ......Scroll down to FONT DISCUSSION

HAB1- R13
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Gosh, you've really got some nice toys here . . .

[SynaMax]

[SynaMax]

I just remembered what I used for the alternate Ronda glyphs. Pump Light:

http://www.myfonts.com/fonts/linotype/pump-lt/