What Oscar-Nominated Actors Do These Typefaces Remind You Of?

Lamenting a lack of appreciation for the thousands of font families released in 2009, designer (and FastCompany.com guest blogger) Ellen Lupton doled out a series of Oscars for best typefaces of the year. Can you pick which Oscar-winning actors they reminded her of?

1. Alright Sans, by Jackson Cavanaugh, Okay Type

The kid's Alright. This ballsy geometric sans has a humanist underbelly that helps him play those sensitive scenes in between car chases.

2. Liza Pro, by Underware

A brush script with bite, Liza Pro merges artifice and spontaneity. Tapping the power of OpenType, this fast-moving font uses automatic substitution to conjure a constantly changing performance from 4,000 unique glyphs.

3. Mr Eaves, by Zuzana Licko, Émigré

The dainty and graceful Mrs Eaves has found her sans-serif counterpart. With his diminutive x-height, loose letter spacing, and lovely bones, Mr Eaves offers a balanced match for his lyrical sister. This elegant sans really knows how to wear a suit.

4. Klimax, by Ondrej Jób, Typotheque

With its engorged strokes and super-slim counters, Klimax delivers "the money shot." This fantastically foxy typeface brings an undercurrent of theoretical rigor to a blatantly sexy genre.

5. Best Superfamily: Trilogy, by Jeremy Tankard, Jeremy Tankard Typography

Inspired by nineteenth-century commercial printing styles, Trilogy includes not only sans and slab serif typefaces but also a surprising new "fat face" variant, with ultrawide verticals and wafer-thin serifs. Trilogy packs an enormous range of expression into a single family.

a. Penelope Cruz

b. Colin Firth

c. Meryl Street meets Pamela Anderson

d. Matt Damon

e. John Wayne meets Johnny Depp

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Answers: 1 d; 2 a; 3 b; 4 c; 5 e