Joel Holland’s type for The Thursday Murder Club movie
The Thursday Murder Club film held its premiere at the Paris Cinema, my favorite cinemas in New York. The lobby display included the book’s original cover and lettering by Joel Holland. It was a quiet but telling reminder of how lettering, when drawn with care, becomes part of the identity of a story.
I mentioned Joel’s type in an earlier post, where the hand-lettering shaped the atmosphere of Richard Osman’s mystery series before a reader even reached page one. The covers balanced elegance with a sly playfulness. Each new installment returned to the same visual language, so the series looked like it belonged together even as the plots moved in fresh directions.
At the premiere, that lettering bridged the gap between print and film. The same script that once greeted a reader on a bookstore shelf now greeted a filmgoer on a marquee wall. It gave a sense of continuity.
Richard Osman’s characters had made the leap from page to screen, and Joel Holland’s hand-drawn title made the leap with them.
The film is out now on Netflix, streaming worldwide as of August 28. Viewers will meet the same band of retirees who investigate murders between tea breaks, now embodied by a cast that includes Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan, and Ben Kingsley.
The lettering, though, remains Holland’s quiet claim to authorship.
