Hey Fam

What is the font name he used for the wording down the sleeves that said "MINNEAPOLIS" etc. and the names of the fonts used on the PR album. I have the PR font but what about the fonts used for the other songs. Are those custom fonts?

Thanks!

The font for the Purple Rain album is one that had been around for years before that actually. Mistral is what it's called and it's the font for the lyrics and album liner notes, the back of "When Doves Cry" etc. The sharper edged version of it is something else, sometimes called Nikki or Still Time.

I actually have a Pinterest board where I upload pics everytime I see Mistral used. It's even been used on older albums by Steely Dan (Can't Buy A Thrill), The Who (The Kids Are Alright), and Wagner (A Way of Life); the movies Drive and Peggy Guggenheim, the Red Roof Inn, and a 1970s book about UFO's (An Alien Harvest) to name a few.

He had things on his sleeves a lot. You need to be more specific.

AlexaDeParis7 said:

Hey Fam

What is the font name he used for the wording down the sleeves that said "MINNEAPOLIS" etc. and the names of the fonts used on the PR album. I have the PR font but what about the fonts used for the other songs. Are those custom fonts?

Thanks!

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Sorry, but you do not have the Purple Rain (main title) font, because that is NOT a font. It's a hand-drawn design, not a computer font, therefore the same individual characters are not identical.

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Some people have created imitations based on that typeface-design in Fontographer but they are nothing more than poor quality imitations, unusable if you care anything about typography.
And there might have been a professionally designed typeface that the Purple Rain main title was based on, but again, that won't be the same and it certainly wouldn't have several different versions of the same characters.

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TrivialPursuit said:

He had things on his sleeves a lot. You need to be more specific.

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Most of those I remember were some narrow, bold sans serif typefaces with quite a lot of space between the characters. But yeah, would need to see the specific one as there were many costumes with words on them.

AlexaDeParis7 said:

Hey Fam

What is the font name he used for the wording down the sleeves that said "MINNEAPOLIS" etc. and the names of the fonts used on the PR album. I have the PR font but what about the fonts used for the other songs. Are those custom fonts?

Thanks!

Those letters were drawn on cloth, cut out and appliqued onto his clothing by his clothing designer(s). I wouldn't call it a font.

Kares said:

Sorry, but you do not have the Purple Rain (main title) font, because that is NOT a font. It's a hand-drawn design, not a computer font, therefore the same individual characters are not identical.

.
Some people have created imitations based on that typeface-design in Fontographer but they are nothing more than poor quality imitations, unusable if you care anything about typography.
And there might have been a professionally designed typeface that the Purple Rain main title was based on, but again, that won't be the same and it certainly wouldn't have several different versions of the same characters.

.

Yeah, that's probably where the Still Time or Nikki fonts came from. It's pretty close, but it's not the same as the main title. Still time is very hard edged, straight lined. The main title, even while pointier than Mistral still has some curve on it in places.

Just as a note, I learned to write in Mistral back then. My signature changed based on Mistral - a bit. I have an N in the middle of my name. All The Ns don't connect to the next letter. The right vertical line shoots straight down, so I started doing that in my signature in high school. I sorta still do it now, but the overall Mistral look of my signature isn't there anymore.