Pac-Man arcade game US flyer
US Pac-Man flyer ca. 1980 (front)
From Wikipedia:
Pac-Man, originally called Puck Man in Japan, is a 1980 maze video game developed and released by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. The player controls Pac-Man, who must eat all the dots inside an enclosed maze while avoiding four colored ghosts. Eating large flashing dots called “Power Pellets” causes the ghosts to temporarily turn blue, allowing Pac-Man to eat them for bonus points.
This is a 1980 poster created by Midway to advertise the game in North America. Display and body text is set entirely in various weights of ITC Souvenir, with Helvetica used for legal copy (including Midway’s logo).
The logo for Pac-Man was designed by Tadashi Yamashita, a member of Namco’s design department. It is an original logotype, although it resembles the geometric Art Deco fonts that received a revival in popularity in the 1970s, particularly Baby Teeth.
The geometric design of the logo reflects the iconic wedge shape of Pac-Man’s in-game representation; this was emphasized by Midway, editing the design on the flyer (though not the cabinet) to add Pac-Man’s eyes to the letter C.
Yamashita also created the character artwork for Pac-Man; he is said to have “paid heed to the American influence in pop culture at the time”, envisioning scenes in which Pac-Man “runs along a West Coast landscape while the Ghosts make mischief”. His illustrations often borrowed influence from the logotype on imported album covers.
Originally, the game was known as Puck Man in Japan. In North America, the game’s name was changed to avoid crude vandalism. The founder of Namco, Masaya Nakamura, eventually recommended the name Pac-Man, as he believed this would better reflect the Japanese spelling, pakkuman. Before this title was settled upon, Snapper was also considered.
All three logos use the same general design and logotype. However, they show peculiarities when compared to similar fonts, notably the letter K in the Puck Man logo and the letter E in the Snapper logo.
Each logo is set in three offset layers, the top layer in signature Pac-Man yellow and the bottom layers in white (up and to the left) and purple (down and to the right), typically atop an orange-and-red frame. The letters have contoured lines suggesting shading in the bottom right.
To this day, whenever new text in the Pac-Man logotype is required, unique characters are created; it does not have one standardized design.
US Pac-Man flyer ca. 1980 (back)
The original design sketches for the Pac-Man logo, by Tadashi Yamashita of Namco. The title was changed from the original Japanese Puck Man, although Snapper was briefly considered instead.
The finalized design of the Puck Man logo, as the game was known in Japan. Note the distinct shape of the letter K.
An early English flyer, released before the US debut of Pac-Man, shows the finalized design of the Snapper logo (cropped for detail). Note the distinct shape of the letter E.
The finalized design of the Pac-Man logo
1 Comment on “Pac-Man arcade game US flyer”
Thanks for this contribution, Erika!
The question of the Pac-Man font came up here before more than once. As you write, the consensus is that the Pac-Man logo is custom drawn, and not directly based on a font. It’s correct that, on Fonts In Use, we sometimes credit typefaces even when they were used in modified or redrawn form. Typically these are tagged with “lettering derived from typeface”. We only do this when we’re convinced that the typeface in question in fact formed the basis. In the case of the Pac-Man logo, we’re not sure.
Not only is the logo different from Baby Teeth in several details, from non-matching angles and proportions to letters like K and E in “Puck Man” and “Snapper” which are completey different. There’s also the fact that there were numerous other typeface designs made from simple geometric shapes like triangle, circle, square. In other words, why Baby Teeth when the designers might also have looked at Black Boton, Black Body, Titan, Theda Bara, to name but a few? Even at Photo-Lettering, Baby Teeth wasn’t the first design following this recipe: they carried faces like Norton Futuramic and Bosco Silhouette already before 1950. Daylight Fonts has a whole genre dubbed “Pacman” and includes designs released decades prior to Baby Teeth, like Etna and Ciclope.