De La Pena Bryan. Drive GIF. 28 May 2026.
The moment was September 2011, I was enrolled in Pasadena City College pursuing an Industrial Design path. My classes were design heavy from digital design to physical design such as screen printing. I was still finding myself conflicted in my future, one thing for certain was my profound love for art and music. During Graphics 101 our professor was discussing the uses of fonts. I found it boring at the time, but our assignment was to look at fonts used in advertisement and discuss the impact it has on the audience. The deadline was getting close and I still haven’t started.
My peers had taken the popular options and I was struggling to find something. I scorched the internet trying to draw inspiration but came out short. Until I came across a movie poster, with Ryan Gosling was in the driver seat and the title Drive in hot pink Mistral font. This was my first time seeing any promotion for the movie, but the font caught my eye. So I searched more about the movie, I learned about the director Nicholas Winding Refn, the cast and production team to the inspiration used on the movie. The day came and it was my turn to talk about a font.
The movie wasn’t out yet but I spoke how the font had captivated me. I became a spokeperson for the movie, to the point I got midnight tickets for its release on September 15th. I took my girlfriend (my wife now) to see it. As I watched the movie, I fell in love with the neo-noir look, the music, the usage of feeling versus dialogue. As I exited the movie theater I instantly knew this movie became one of my favorites. I didn’t know how a simple font assignment would change my life, the soundtrack became special to my wife and I. There was no better feeling than driving home to “Under Your Spell” by Desire (used in the movie), on a lonely night with the windows down.
YouTube: Luis Cuevas. 23 Dec 2014. Under Your Spell- Desire (Drive)