Base Jumper
Date
Category
Creative Thoughts
Joel Waldrep
I created Base Jumper as a display typeface for The Scorch Trials, looking for something that felt like it belonged to a damaged, industrial future. The letterforms are rigid and mechanical, but there is also something slightly unstable about them. They feel constructed rather than drawn, almost like a language assembled from parts.
What interests me now is how typography can become part of the environment. A typeface doesn't have to simply communicate words. It can suggest technology, history, place, or even the condition of the world around it. Base Jumper was an exercise in taking that idea seriously and seeing how far a set of letters could become part of the story.
I still like the idea that a typeface can exist somewhere between graphic design and prop making. You aren't just designing letters. You're inventing a visual language that might have existed before the audience ever sees it.