The
REBECCA font was inspired by the handwriting of the title character of the classic film.
Rebecca (1940) was based on the novel by Daphne du Maurier and directed by Alfred Hitchcock. The title character is dead and not even a portrait of her is ever seen. Her handwriting appears several times in the film and is perhaps the thing that most personalizes her. Indeed, her large initial R appears embroidered on a number of her possessions, including the pillow in flames at left.
Rebecca's signature, address book, and correspondence all appear in closeups as evidence of her existence. Includes upper and lower case, numbers, punctuation, and international characters.
Now available from Font Bros!
More information:
Produced David O. Selznick obsessed over the Details of bringing the popular novel to the screen and believed that the handwriting of the mysterious, unforgettable
Rebecca Hildreth de Winter was an important detail. He called for a "curious, slanting hand. Tall and sloping R dwarfing the other letters." The handwriting of three women was "auditioned" and that of Helen Amigo selected. In reissues of the film and on the DVD the title art is based on
Rebecca's assertive, self-conscious signature.
An unusual Aspect of
Rebecca is that the main character (sympathetically played by Joan Fontaine) is intentionally never referred to by name. Similarly unnamed--and unseen like
Rebecca--is the drowned woman misidentified by Maxim as
Rebecca.
Most of the letters appear in the film or in another, unused note which appears on the Criterion DVD. I had to invent some characters, choose where there were contradictions, and, in entirely redrawing the font, make it bLend together.
The text in the illustration at the top is from the famous opening lines of
Rebecca.
