The HAL 9000 Logo

HAL 9000: the logotype that’s hard to get right!

The HAL branding is emblazoned on all the computer faceplates aboard the Discovery spacecraft in 2001. Although a bit dated today, the logotype convincingly conveys the solid corporate look of mid 1960s data processing equipment. And it’s really quite simple in design: the outlined words HAL 9000 are printed in white over a solid blue and black rectangular background.

But despite this straightforward and minimalist design, most HAL 9000 logotype reproductions are very wrong.

Do folks drop acid and draw the logo from memory or something? Some of these are so goofy they might as well have used a swirly script font and printed it purple!

Then of course there's the clumsy low-rent HAL 9000 faceplate replica seen in the non-Kubrick sequel, 2010: The Year We Make Contact. Which is inaccurate in every single respect and even adds a light bulb behind the logo!

Now, to be fair it’s not entirely surprising that nobody got the details of the logotype right for years. It’s only seen on-screen on the faceplates themselves, and is thus quite small. The fine points were elusive.

But for the past decade or so high resolution photos of the original decals have been widely available, so we can now reproduce the logotype very accurately. More on that in a moment.

The history of the logotype

So how was the logo designed, and what was the typeface used? Well, it’s clear that Harry Lange worked on the logo, and quite probably created the final design. He donated a pair of sketches to author Piers Bizony, illustrating two early versions.

It’s also clear that the logo was intended to reflect the kind of visual iconography developed by large US computer manufacturers of the day, such as IBM and Honeywell.

The film’s attention to detail is meticulous, down to the branding. When Bowman requests a hard copy of the AE-35 data, HAL produces this delightfully anachronistic punch card – proudly bearing the HAL 9000 logo. The workstation that he’s sitting at is similarly labelled, with logos on two separate sections of panel.

The movie’s decals

Once the design was settled it was necessary to get the logo onto the HAL faceplates, control panels, and so on. Letraset dry transfers (rub-down lettering) were used for the bulk of the pushbuttons and other labels, but it appears that the HAL logo was actually done via a wet waterslide transfer. According to 2001 researcher Adam K. Johnson, Frederick Ordway mentioned that the giant British model kit manufacturer Airfix was commissioned to produce the logos in waterslide form. It's funny to think that the same production line that printed off RAF roundels for 1:72 model Hurricanes, for children all over Britain to build, was used to make this important cinematic detail! Three different logo sizes were printed as decals. The same technique was used to create the USAA crests applied to the space helmets, incidentally.

Ordway gave Johnson a set of these production decals that had never been applied, and Johnson included a small version of the logotype in his 2012 book, 2001: the Lost Science. The full set of three decals was included in Piers Bizony’s 2014 Taschen book, The Making of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: a Space Odyssey. This large printing may have been the first time that the high-rez logo was made publicly available.

A few years later, in 2019, an IBM Selectric typewriter once owned by 2001 crew member Con Pederson went on the auction block. He had taken an unused HAL decal and applied it to his personal typewriter. Photos on the Bonhams website clearly show how the decal was extremely thin and conformed very tightly to the uneven wrinkle paint surface. The yellow edge of the carrier film is also visible. This confirms the idea that waterslide technology was used.

Researching the details

A key to figuring out the design was to figure out the typeface. The face used is definitely unusual. The tail on the numeral 9 points inwards, and the zeroes have a slightly squared-off set of curves, almost like a condensed font.

While researching typefaces available in Britain in the 1960s for my work on the 2001 zero gravity toilet sign, I came across Monotype Grotesque No. 9. It's a strangely idiosyncratic hot metal font with unusual details on many of the terminals.

Grotesque 9 was part of a numbered family of faces (ie: it’s typeface number 9 in a sequence; not 9 points tall) originally released by Stephenson, Blake and Co, a type foundry in Sheffield, way back in 1906. It’s credited to typographer Eleisha Pechey, which is interesting since he died in 1902. Not sure how that works.

Incidentally, the name wasn’t meant to convey anything negative. In those days it was common to refer to sans-serif typefaces as “grotesques”.

Grotesque No. 9 formed the basis for Monotype Headline Bold, the font that was used in 2001’s toilet sign. So I took a closer look. I tracked down a modern digital version.

Looks familiar, doesn’t it? It was definitely a “aha!” moment for me. However, there are subtle differences between the digitized rendition, and the film’s logo. In particular, the terminal of the 9 differs from the digital reproduction – it’s more horizontal and doesn't angle slightly inwards. And the film version is obviously outline, whereas the standard typeface is not.

But I was looking at the two Lange draft versions, and realized that the HAL lettering for both was clearly a dry transfer. When viewed in person you can see where the letters have lifted and bent slightly. So I did some investigating, and yes, Letraset did release Grot 9 in a rub-down dry transfer form. In full hand-drawn glory, with subtle differences in stroke weight. And not only that, but they also produced an outline version. Mystery solved!

THE HAL 9000 FONT

Based on this research, I conclude that Letraset Grotesque 9 Outline White in 72 points was used as the basis for the HAL logotype.

I haven’t been able to find a sheet of Letraset’s Grotesque 9 outline in white yet, and the black sheet I bought (product 124; shown above) is dated 1972. But the presence of white outline transfers on the Lange prototype logos clearly demonstrates that such a product must have existed in the 1960s. Of course, they could have used the black version to produce the decal – they would just have needed to photograph it to make the white plate to be printed.

So the artwork was photographically reproduced, printed as a thin waterslide decal, then applied to the various HAL 9000 devices seen on the set.

Surviving decals have a pale yellow border around the blue, but I don’t know if that was a deliberate guide for cutting the decals off the sheet, or just yellowing of the carrier film since it was originally printed. The decals seem to have slightly thinner letter strokes than the Letraset originals, but I believe that’s a result of the photographic process used to make them.

The colours

The colours are problematic. Black is obviously easy. But the blue is tricky. The blue visible in the surviving decals is a medium blue with a hint of teal to it. However in the film it appears a more saturated blue, owing to the complexities of colour reproduction in motion picture film.

Therefore the specific blue of the logo is, ultimately, only a best guess. I used a fairly blue rendition for my HAL 9000 replica faceplate, mainly so it looks a bit closer to the versions seen on-screen. Though in retrospect I wish I'd had time to get a reprint made, since it's a bit too saturated here. But I had to get it out the door and shipped to Madrid for the Kubrick Exhibition.

The actual logotype

Here’s my attempt to render ol’ HAL 9000 in digital form. I think it’s pretty close to the screen-seen original.

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