Ariana Grande, “thank u, next” lyric video
Helvetica (RI), Karmina Sans (GRA), Geneva (tnK) … and what else?
In November 2018, Ariana Grande dropped “thank u, next” — a twinkling, catchy pop song that shimmers with gratitude for her exes, while evolving into an anthem about self-love. The song became sensational overnight, and surpassed 100 million streams on Spotify in just eleven days — making it the fastest song in history to reach that milestone.
She released a lyric video along with the drop, making use of the ransom note effect by mixing up a bunch of familiar fonts including Arial, ITC American Typewriter, Gill Sans, Myriad, and Geneva. There are also some unexpected ones, like Emigre’s Fairplex Wide and Joshua Darden’s Freight Display. Can you identify the missing ones? Let us know in a comment!
This art style was also a perfect setup for her music video released a month later, when Grande re-enacted four early 2000s movies: Mean Girls, Bring It On, 13 Going on 30, and Legally Blonde. The letters reappear on the cover of Grande’s “Burn Book”, but unlike Regina George’s gossip, Grande fills the book with positive traits and fond memories of her exes.
Director: Chris Shelley @Create
Editor: Remington Franklin
Producer: Light Switch Digital
Geneva (an), Courier New (R), Fairplex Wide (pE) and maybe Big Bag (Te); Arial Rounded (M), Pistilli Roman (S), ITC American Typewriter (th), Freight Big (Ank L), Arial (fU).
Gill Sans (tA) and slanted Alternate Gothic (gH).
More Geneva (taNK), Craw Modern Italic (nE), Arial Black (t).
Craw Modern Italic (fu g), Arial Black (inG), Alternate Gothic (Ra), Pistilli Roman (f), American Typewriter (Y).
Arial Black (t) and Italic (Ha), more Craw Modern Italic (nk), Pistilli Roman (u, Xt), Arial Rounded (n).
5 Comments on “Ariana Grande, “thank u, next” lyric video”
The Athelas “a” also makes an appearance at the 47" mark.
Good catch, Conor, thanks! Added.
Can you point out the unidentified fonts?
There are a couple of missing ones. It’s pretty hard to identify fonts from single glyphs, all the more so when it’s about unspecific letters (e.g. i, l) and plain styles. Two fonts that might be possible to track down is the a (similar to ITC Newtext) and the wide n (maybe Briller?) in the first image.
I just wonder, how do people even do this? By which I mean the images. Also, if you want to identify the fonts, try recreating the image and then identify anything related to the missing letter.