Why Sean Baker uses the same font in every one of his movies

[ResidentialBusiness]

For filmmakers with a fondness for certain fonts, using them frequently enough in their work can turn typography into a sort of signature. See the typeface in a film, and you know exactly who the director is.

Wes Anderson has an obsession with Futura, while John Carpenter set his film credits in Albertus, a formal serif. Papyrus is now synonymous with James Cameron’s Avatar franchise, and more than 40 of Woody Allen’s films use Windsor. For director Sean Baker, whose comedy-drama Anora won the 2025 Oscar for Best Picture and netted him the Academy Award for Best Director, his font of choice is the tall, narrow, decorative Aguafina Script.

Created by type designers Alejandro Paul and Angel Koziupa of the Argentinean type foundry Sudtipos, Aguafina Script is described as “semi-formal and eye-catching” with characters that “flow into each other,” perfect for product packaging, glossy magazines, and book covers. Turns out it also works well for movie posters and title sequences, as Baker has proven for more than a decade now with his various projects.

[Images: IMDB]

Baker told the streaming platform Mubi last year that he first selected Aguafina Script for the title sequence of 2015’s Tangerine, about a transgender sex worker (a film that was shot entirely on iPhones), because he was looking for something that was “stylistically interesting” and because it subverted the grittiness of the subject matter. “It is saying that there is an elegance to this production in the way we’re presenting the subject matter,” he said.

After realizing the font could serve the same purpose for 2017’s The Florida Project (about a girl and her single mother who live in a motel near Disney World), he said, “If I continue this it could eventually become something that people connect with—and connect with my films [the way Carpenter’s and Allen’s fonts did with theirs].”

“Now when you see those fonts, you think of those filmmakers and their films,” said Baker, who utilized Aguafina Script through to the movie posters too. “I like to have consistency between my advertising material and the actual credits.”

By weaving it into the visual identity of his films, including a recently minted Oscar winner, Baker has made Aguafina Script his own, and shown how type can be used to challenge viewers’ preconceived notions.

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