Identifying the fonts of the movie The Hunt for Red October

Vasil Stanev

Hello,
I got sent a number of images from the Movie "The hunt for Red October" with the duty to identify them. I think I was almost able, but the CIA font and the font of the title presented some trouble for me. I would love some help!


- The "Cold this morning..." appears to be Newtext.
- The font used in the sea battle seems to be some version of Bookman, but I can't tell which one exactly.
- The font used for the title seems to be a modification of Monoblock, or rather it was the other way about - it was custom made to "appear Soviet" and the design spawned a variety of fonts.
The CIA font I have seen it or something similar in many movies, but I have no clue what it is.

As I am more of a font designer than a font "detective", I don't know the proper procedures to process such requests from clients. Are type designers also expected to be professional type historians? Not where I'm at. Is there a specialized place on the web, or a bureau that can help me with similar future requests by clients? Or does one simply post the materials on general type boards and the like and wait for proper response? Currently I'm using WhatTheFont.

Stephen Coles

Hi Vasil. TypeDrawers members are encouraged to use dedicated forums (such as Font ID) and tools (such as WTF) for typeface identification. And here are some tips for getting better at doing it yourself.