The Best Part Of TF2 That You've Never Noticed 

I hate to admit it, but this is what 7 years without updates does to a man... Join The Discord: discord.gg/KZ7RPShsuY Support Me On Patreon: www.patreon.com/TheLucidLetters Follow My Twitter: twitter.com/letters_lucid

Didn't want to be the one to say it but "this is what 7 years of developing caligraphy, storytelling and argumentation skills does to a community member"

When something gets too natural, we tend to forget how important they are, just like air. So are fonts, I guess. Good video.

The F in TF2 stands for font!

That’s crazy how a font style can change so much about the experience of a game

"who would know if elmaxo would still have a career" VERY BAD TIMING HE FUCKING QUIT TODAY

I haven't even considered how important fonts are given that you're going to be looking at them constantly.

Sooooo about Elmaxo's career. That line aged terribly immediately.

6:13 aged like milk

What 9 years of development does to its art style.

somewhere in the world andrea is weeping woth joy, since someone finally noticed her work and she can rest easy

"Damm I can't wait to go to sleep tonight" *10 minute video about font appears*

The biggest problem with custom fonts in videogames is that you will lose your mind if you'll try to customize it for every language possible. It's also sad when there's only an english version of a custom font and in, for example, spanish you see funny combos of nice characters combined with "default" characters like ñ and á/ó/ú/é/í, etc.

This is genuinely the best TF2 video essay I've watched this month.

[Text communication is not available for this acount]

This channel unironically opened my eyes on calligraphy as an art form

Music is also a key part of this game. Which is funny of itself, because you only hear it menu and halloween. Some compositions slap so hard that just, by hearing it you couldve guessed the name and idea of emotion it portraits. Like "Robots" is a whole story of itself. Hearing the way orchestra is fighting against the synthesizer, eventually blending together, and the orchestra coming out on top, is cool

the hud hes using is called DarHUD btw

What seven years with no update does to an mf

Team Fontress 2

Font can really poke your eyes , I played a ton of League of Legends and as soon as they change the font on the scoreboard it feels weird.

its insane that the shape of letters can be so impactful on the art style of a game, good video btw keep it up

"Who knows if elmaxo would still have a career if he couldn't use this font as a crutch, am I right?" Really unfortunate timing.

This was... an actual masterpiece of a video, amazing job, had me baffled that someone could talk about fonts and make me actually want to sit and listen intently. Hats off to ya B)

these stupid game design videos are always inherently limited by now knowledgeable their writer is. one look at that logo, and you can tell you're in for something special. amazing video! very underrated.

The craziest part of the game that nobody ever mentions is the incredible fact that demoman is black. How is that even possible?

Trench by Twenty One Pilots being mentioned in a video about TF2's font was not on my 4am RU-vid watching bingo card. And you are absolutely correct about it being their best album (except maybe Clancy, their newest)

The amount of care put into this game was so impactful. It amazes me that to this day you can still see people caring about this game just as deeply

God, I need more videos about fonts. These things are so great but are fucking slept on.

Cool video, my eyes are on necesse now

4:42 TØP mentioned, Trench praised, just subscribed, today is good day

everytime, everyday we find a deeper rabbit hole in TF2 what 7 years without updates does to a mf

this actually opened my eyes to how much of an impact a font can have on anything

There is this fresh RU-vidr named *BackInMyDayProductions* making stock tutorials for TF2 classes. But in the way where he actually makes the stock loadout work... It's something I found surprising because we know that unlocks are in ways better than stock, then this random dude says otherwise returning to stock. Recently he just released a stock Engie tutorial and even that is different, the way he executed the tutorial expects you already know how to play Engineer. As he stated "This video expects you watched Uncle Dane's tutorials" and I have, glad to say his teachings are definitely more favorable and understanding to the stock loadout. But what really hones in the "original" loadout of the classes is the late 2000s video style he brings to his videos. It feels and looks nostalgic. (This man or woman is mentally insane, he plays on 4:3 on 75 fov, no weapon quick switching, and no hitsounds/dmg numbers. They have embodied old TF2 and old TF2 videos and somehow makes it work for them...) Edit: forgot to say, he makes good use of TF2's fonts too... Really adds charm to his old RU-vid text style tutorials.

im a graphic designer and a tf2 player and u dont know how much i loved this video, its great when people pay attention to little but very important details like the fonts, amazing video❤️

Now that's a topic i didn't hear a single soul talking about, it is quite weird how the little details on something can make such a difference.

"TF2 RU-vidrs are NOT running out of ideas!! Let me prove it:" **makes video about fucking fonts**

Loved this video! As a graphic designer I found it really interesting, and I'm glad someone finally did do a video on this, not that I had thought of it before - totally original idea! If I might share my favorite detail about the TF2 font it is the use of serifs. At 3:25 you can see this with the S as there's a tail on the bottom but not on the top. I like to think the artist did this to mimic an old typewriter look while sticking to a sort-of unspoken rule of electronic font design: sans-serif text is usually easier on the eyes when viewed on a screen then serif text, as the extra details cause strain.

Note: The native Linux version of TF2 has some different fonts than the Windows PC version. Elements like the kill list, endscreen, console, etc use just a standard serif font. The big ticket things are the same, like the HUD and title secreen, but the fonts in-game are drastically simplified

Anyone who claims nothing is left to talk about TF2-wise is wrong, or creativity bankrupt. One of the marks of any good content creator is their ability to create a fun, unique video on a topic no matter how saturated it may seem.

y'all are REALLY scraping the barrel with this one

Can't believe I just watched a full 10 minute video about a game's font of all things Thanks for the random info, it's been very interesting

9:07 I let out an audible "ew" when the font swapped over. Amazing work and especially editing, Lucid!

y'know what, I'm glad you talked about this. I often notice how much font choice can bother me when it's not well chosen in a game

This might sound like a kinda dumb thing to make a whole video about on the surface, but it really is an important part of why TF2 is so iconic to this day this was a genuinely really interesting video

0:15 What's funny is that there are some video ideas that are so good and yet nobody replicated them. For example I'm still so salty nobody made a video similar to AceTheOcarinaMaker video where Ace showcased how community will near always hate on everything Pyro has, including all his unlocks, stock pyro in general. I believe other classes have potential to work for this format, like Spy or Sniper and yet nobody replicated that beautiful format. There's also the fact it feels like sometimes people just regurgitate same takes they hear from one tf2uber, like all the "Diamondback and Kunai are op" takes(even though kunai isn't banned anywhere and DB only banned in Highlander due to farming crits from teleporters but ppl provide vastly different crippling nerf ideas to DB). How about fresh takes, like arguing that Engineer might be another class, below sniper ofc, that actually breaks TF2 timeless gameplay formula and how it's boring to fight sentries as anything but demo and maybe soldier, how it robs away the aiming and dodging from engagement, two things that made me fell in love with TF2. So yeah, tons of unexplored or hot takes nobody wants to explore and most are just meta commentary or endless weaponry commentary 😢

Never thought we'd get a more in-depth analysis of TF2's iconic fonts and its impact within the gameplay experience. As a designer I very much appreciate seeing this video mate ;)

I worked professionally as a graphic designer for two years making signs for businesses. I never learned typography or anything like that, but I did modify a couple characters of a font that fit the style needed for a business logo, but had some technical flaws. It definitely gave me an appreciation for how much effort goes into creating a font. You have to create **HUNDREDS** of unique, vectorized glyphs that are all well balanced with one another *and* form a cohesive style. And all of that effort goes into making something that is ultimately SUPPOSED to go unnoticed because if you did a good job, it integrates seamlessly with the overall style of your project to bind everything together.

8:20 I really liked the inclusion of the "once" because man it can be mindboggling sometimes how much Valce cared about TF2.

Just a really fun video I love letter The T

Thank you for teaching me about fonts Lucid.

This video is another in a long line of videos that just proves how deliberate and careful TF2's devs were with its artstyle. Very informative, I would never have known any of this before.

Can't believe that the font in TF2 had more care put into it than most modern games in their entirety...

This video is so incredibly well done, you set out on what you wanted to do, I feel like I want to play Tf2 again today already, this video was so fresh to see after so many videos that are all becoming the same, but in some ways I believe we are going to be going through a renaissance of tf2 videos that are actually enjoyable to watch, hope lazy purple comes back for this

i thought this was a video by LED (another tf2 youtuber who analyzes small details of maps), then i realized it isn't. well done, your disguise worked perfectly

I am SO autistic about fonts and font choices that when you revealed the point of the video I got visibly excited. My old IT teacher once asked me why I cared about font so much and I just had to ask why he /didn't/ Incredible video thank you so much.

bro this video makes the points in the intro valid, like what are you on about

At those Sonic Adventure 2 clip; ¨"What is this???" I believe you're using the HD example, the game changed its font for it. Originally, the entirety of Sonic Adventure 2 is in comic sans, so yeah.

Who knew that a video on fonts would make me intrigued? Good video.

honestly typography is one of my growing interests exactly for this reason, you don't usually think of the alphabet as a set of 26 art pieces, let alone the capitals (52) then 0-9 (62) then the arbitrary symbols ranging from punctuation to mathamatic functions, a single font is a gallery of around 100 pieces all sharing one cohesive style all designed around being functional. even a hated font like comic sans has this design in mind, being rounded out to be more cartoony to fit with the comic book styling it was named after with such insane legibility it improves dislexics ability to read it. mainly being hated for being overused when not appropriate, like this is the first time i've seen anyone comment on the sa2 subtitle font because the game is so wacky it weirdly suits a sans style font, only really detracting from more serious cutscenes you only really see when you're already used to it. these days every website uses some varient of arial to a point its started appearing in logos and it's just... so boring. more products need an injection of persanality into their basic ui, it's honestly insane how services entirely built on their ui while all the content is created by users fail at something so fundamental.

"TF2 is a game" holy shit i had no idea

this is probably a horrible analogy to make but fonts have always been significant to me ever since Roblox changed their default text box font and logo even. Typeface is super iconic and it has a huge impact on the type of media you are consuming, especially if you apply it to fast food chains and tv shows. Any kind of logo really. Applying that to tf2 makes it funner for me to think about because I was thinking about this too when I downloaded the files from the website.

I was actually looking to learn about this but I didn't know where to look for information. Great video!

Man this is actually a really good video. As someone who really can't tell the fonts apart, you being able to still explain to me why they matter and what characteristics Tf2 fonts have as well as backstory is amazing. Kudos

the tf2 font is honestly one of my favourites in any game. I have a download of it on both my drawing apps so i can just use it whenever, even if it's not a tf2 related drawing

The logo for Team Fortress Classic did actually use Impact

Nice video bro! Im definitely gonna start using Compacta! You really further highlighted how much Valve cared to accentuate TF2 style!

I remember as a kid, when playing RuneScape, they changed the font of the game's text in the textbox. It was such a long time ago, but I recall people being so upset about it that they changed it back. Now, RuneScape's font (whatever it is called) is so recognizable to me that I can easily see some text and go "Oh, hey, that's the RuneScape font!" While text is so simple, you made a great point stating that it can make a game much more easy to recognize when you see a small detail *all* the time.

I did not think the algorithm would send me a video so interesting about fonts. damn. good vid!!

really interesting video shows how important fonts are for everything

Absolute banger of a video! Everything regarding tf2 style is carefully put together it's insane

Wow. This really goes to show that every aspect of a piece of art no matter how tiny, is important in giving it its identity

Great video! I never thought i would watch a video about TF2 font and actually find it interesting! 😂

First time I've seen anyone else talk about the font. Good video.

I adore the tf2 fonts! Blocky fonts are so fun and personally my favorites. Its why i also still love the default hud too

Shoutout to Andrea Wicklund for making the fonts for so many Valve masterpieces. It's the little detalis that matter! :D

Wow i did not expect myself to be so engrossed in this video about fonts. love the video bro

Cheers, lad. Now that I think about it, a good font makes the difference between a game feeling cheap or professional.

what a awesome video from now on i will look more for fonts.

Fonts are very important to a games vibe, which is just 1 of the reasons most my favorite games use their own fonts for everything, like splatoon or animal crossing

I LOVE FONT DESIGN

Weirdly, this is one of the most enjoyable tf2 videos I've seen in a while lol

Never really noticed how great the fonts are but now I can’t think of Tf2 without them.

Massive respect for Andrea for biting her thumb off for the L4D cover photo!

Sonic Adventure 2 mentioned, I love fonts

6:12 well that aged poorly

As a graphic designer, this video is absolutely wonderful. Fonts do so much for the look and feel of just about anything, especially when done right. It's exactly your introduction to a game or the vibe you want, same could be said about posters. Want a warning sign? Send a bold, bright message with a sans serif. Love the video!

As someone with dyslexia, I'm greatfull that tf2 font came out the way it did, it makes for an almost perfect font to make reading easier. The sharp edges, slightly stretched or skewed letters, a sort of caricature of the letters make it alot easier to differentiate letters from each other

and nobody talk about the sounds of tf2, like the killstreak sound, machine sound etc

Guys, he's becoming Linus Boman.

After I took a course on phonts and their importance in graphic design I now see how weirdly and uncanny they impact whatever product they are found in, from Albums to Movie Posters, Trailers and, in this case, videogames. One can sumise the amount of care and detail has been put to a game with the smaller artistic touches that, even if small, still affect the product in subtle ways and also serve as a messuring stick for the care and passion put into the project. TF2 is a shinning example of this.

This really brings the "Letters" back to your name

Well since we are talking about less noticable details that we look at everyday there is something that has been on my mind for quite awhile The eSports clan FaZe logo is actually just the logo on top of flags from tfc that is happened to be the logo for the original quake mod

The video is honestly great and something I hadn’t thought about before. (What 7 years no update do to a community) but also why is it rendered in 15 fps?? It makes the gameplay and edits/transitions hard to watch.

I remember when he first started hjs tf2 journey, so beautiful, love the new stuff man.

Hey there man! I was watching you for a long time now and you might now answer but it worth a shot! I'm Content Maker myself and in the future I'm planning on documentaries myself and how exactly do YOU make those seemless background moving pieces? I have some ways on how to recreate them myself and tried a bunch of stuff but was wondering about your approach since you're really amazing at visuals in your vids and I appreaciate it a lot! Thanks for the vidya btw! Amazing stuff to snack and get some knowledge

Genuinely this is my favorite video on tf2's artstyle. Its the little details that matter so much.

bruh this is golden content thanks for the video, valve is insane with this thoughtfulness

4:45 twenty one pilots mentioned rahhhhhhhhhhhh clique rise uppppppp

After 7 years of development even the fonts where perfected. That why TF2 is still relevant today