Jaws is the name of a book, written by Peter Benchley in the 1970s. First published in 1974, the novel became one of the contemporary classics and turned into a very successful franchise with the famous The Jaws movie, directed by Steven Spielberg.
Jaws is an iconic horror movie directed by Steven Spielberg in 1975. The movie is about a great white shark terrorizing a small coastal town and three men trying to stop it. It is the first movie in box office history to hit the $100 million mark. All in all, it managed to earn about 260 million USD in the US distribution and 210 million USD worldwide.
Moreover, Jaws has become one of the most successful and influential films in cinematographic history, with the movie receiving three Academy Awards, eight Golden Globe nominations, and numerous other awards and accolades.
In fact, Jaws is an adaptation of Peter Benchley’s novel of the same name. For a long time, there were rumors that the bestseller was based on real events that took place in New Jersey in 1916, but later the author denied this information. Benchley came up with the idea for the book after hearing lifeguards in Massachusetts tell horror stories about different shark attacks.
Benchley’s book Jaws spent 44 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and the film adaptation rights were sold to Universal for $575,000.
The filming of Jaws was full of difficulties and surprises that increased the budget and timeline of the project. One of the main problems was the shark, which was made of mechanical puppets controlled by remotes and hydraulics. Sharks often broke, got stuck, drowned, or looked unconvincing. However, in the end, it all worked out and the movie took its lamentable place in the library of masterpieces of world cinema.
The visual identity of the famous horror is Lavinia yet solid and strong. Composed of a single wordmark, the logo is often accompanied by an image of a shark with its mouth open and its teeth sharp. But the official logo is only the logotype, which is instantly recognizable all over the globe due to a few very remarkable details.
The Jaws inscription is written in all capitals of an ExtraBold sans-serif typeface, where the letters “A” and “W” are placed so close to each other, that creates a feeling of a single organism. Divided by a thin diagonal line, the letters are massive and solid and evoke a sense of something powerful and fundamental.
The typeface, which looks very similar to Wynwood JNL and Rolphie 16 Max SC, has its letter “J” modified. Its curved tail has a diagonal cut, which resembles two things at one time — an ocean wave, to represent the water element, and the sharp shark’s teeth, pointing on the main hero of the novel.
As for the color palette, the Jaws logo is usually executed in bloody-red and placed on a blue background. Sometimes the letters gain a delicate black shadow, but in most cases, they are just plain red. The shades of red can vary depending on the placement, that is how the logo becomes a bit darker, colored in burgundy red for some editions.