Dave Kellam

My font, Plastic Tomato, appeared briefly in Despicable Me 3.

I get a huge kick out of this, mostly because I made it twenty years ago while I was still in high-school. Grunge design was popular and there was an indie font scene happening on the early web. I churned out a bunch of fonts over the span of a year or two, released them all online, but didn’t take it much further. They managed to make it through several site migrations, and are still tucked away in the dusty type section of the site.

All of the fonts were freely available and had a note attached saying to get in touch if you want to use them commercially. I still get the occasional email, mostly people using them for smaller personal projects. So, I was a bit surprised to get a message from a movie studio asking for clearance to use it.

I wanted to reach out because I’m working on Despicable Me 3 and production is interested in using your Plastic Tomato font for a 1980’s style action figure commercial in the movie. The font would be seen on screen (along with other fonts) stating the action figure’s features. If you’re okay with the use, we’d appreciate it if you could sign the attached clearance request.

I signed the request, but wasn’t sure if it would actually make it into the movie. Never got around to seeing it in the theatre, but grabbed a copy when it was released digitally.

And there it is, the font I made in high-school, on-screen (gif) for approximately two seconds!