Arvo: Typeface Spread

Arvo is one of those hidden gems that we, as designers, stubmle upon every once in a while — and I mean this sincerely. As a typeface, it is quite easy to glean over its finer nuances that make it a compelling typeface. It both sticks to its geometric slab-serif roots yet is also poised for the digital age.

In retrospect, I am able to break my process down into three parts: research, insights, iteration, feedback, and final. I’ll briefly go over each aspect of my process in this post.

Research

There was little to no information regarding Arvo on the web. The information that did exist was either impertinent, repetitive, or superficial. This led me to contact Mr. Anton Koovit, the creator of Arvo, to get his take on the typeface with emphasis on its development, purpose, and personality. When I combined what he told me with what I was able to find online and through my own analysis of Arvo’s typographical elements, I was able to get a fairly good picture of Arvo’s nuances and persona. Below are some of our correspondences — with minimal edits for clarity.

Notes from Discussion with Anton Koovit

1. When did you create Arvo and, more importantly, why motivations/inspirations did you have in creating Arvo (e.g. perhaps existing fonts).
— I didn’t really follow any particular model. Just added serifs to one of my sketch typefaces. Had no slab family in my catalogue and thus was eager to create one. Before release on Google web fonts i of course checked against Beton, Lubalin Graph and few other fonts not to repeat their mistakes. — There weren’t many slab serifs to look at back in 2009. (BTW, Arvo was 8th typeface on Google fonts, when it was released). I wanted to prove that monolinear with (very) thick serifs can be legible. With hopes that free font can be classy too.

2. When you created Arvo, in what types of cases did you imagine it would be used? (e.g. fashion magazines, advertising, official documents, etc.)
— it was intendted in first place as web typeface. For all kinds of operating systems and screens. UI, Programing, easy to use true workshorse. I even tried to fix the issues of black and white screens ;-). For real world tests i invested into an inkjet printer and checked how pixels look on paper. Got inspired by coarseness of these machines quite a bit.

3. Arvo seems to be a monolinear slab serif typeface that, unlike many other slab serif web typefaces, is highly readable in a variety of contexts Is this an assessment that you agree with and if so can you speak more to the typographic choices you made to accomplish this? (e.g. x-height, aperture, joints, and terminals).
— I agree, legibility was really high on a list. Since i used already proven and legible model, it was fine although there came some MacOS “quartz” quirks that needed some unplanned compensations. These became luckily fruitful in other scenarios too. Although my love for beauty and harmony had to suffer a bit.

4. What is Arvo’s personality?
— It’s a friendly goblin, that helps you through the jungle of text.

5. A bit of an odd question but when you think of Arvo do any songs or genres of music come to mind?
— Parts of Arvo Pärt’s “Spiegel im Spiegel” are in this typeface.

Insights

Having obtained a thorough understanding of Arvo, I was able to narrow in on the elements that I wanted to focus my spread and subsequent video on. For one, it became strikingly apparent that for Arvo legibility is paramount. In fact, it was developed as a response to the illegibility of print-oriented Egyptian typefaces that dominated the early 2000's. With both print and web intentions in mind, Arvo keeps to aspects common to slab-serif typefaces like a high x-height but also uses monolinear lines to increase readability. Finally, Arvo is a typeface not meant to be taken seriously. And, I mean this with the best of intentions. Even Koovit describes Arvo as a “friendly goblin that helps you through the jungle of text” and I could not agree more.

Iteration

Physical Thumbnail Sketches
** Unfortunately, I forgot to take photos of two pages of thumbnails for before I left :’(. ** I am asking a friend to see if they can help me take photos!

Digital Prototypes
In this stage, I took some of my thumbnail sketches and started to see how they would adapt when put into InDesign. I explored a few different directions and ultimately settled on fleshing out one of them.

Select excerpt of explorations from one direction pursued. I took inspiration from the examples shown in class.

Select excerpt of three directions that I fleshed out. I ultimately chose the one on rollercoaster (right).

Focused Iterations
It was during this stage that I began to focus my iterations on one path.

Orientation: Three potential ways or orienting the imagery. This proved to be a critical exploration that accomplished two major goals: (1) create a visual flow for the viewer to follow (2) create a dynamic sense through the use of imagery.

Color: The correct combination of colors were also very important in creating the feelI wanted. The first selection (left) felt too childlike and did not convey a sense of bold modernism. The second selection (middle) felt swampy and did not bring me to either “a friendly goblin that helps one through the text” or “a quirky elegant font that balances modern as well as classical qualities.” The last poster’s (right) color choice was the closest in creating this feel and I used that poster as a springboard for future iterations.

Feedback

I got some really great critique on the draft I submitted (below). I’ll try to summarize both the feedback I received as well as my personal feedback so it’s easier to see what was changed in the final.

Vicki’s Feedback
- Hanging quote.
- Quote does not fit the image
.- How the quote is handled. Cutting off in awkward spots.
- Quote as well as “r” and “v” may be too close to the edge.
- Consider adding something to the bottom left area.
- General spelling and grammar check.

My Critique
- Adjust color (white background and black text). I can do better.
- Adjust imagery so there is more of a flow (top right).
- Adjust spacing between “vo” and “In a modern day . . .”
- Better align things to other things or the grid.
- Tone down the imagery to remove the general warm hue.

First draft submitted.

Final

I attempted to reconcile all the feedback that I received as well as had for my own work. Below is an excerpt of a few major parts of my process in creating the final version.

Text, Spacing, Quote In this iteration, I added an additional element to the bottom left that was both insightful and addressed poor use of negative space in that area. I also adjusted the quote for formatting and content. I also made adjustments to the text and created more space between the title and subheader.

Spacing and Color: I made some small adjustments and fine tuned color — reduced the red tones — and spacing.

PreFinal: Making better use of the imagery to create visual flow and addressing background and text color. I somehow lost out on spacing between the title and subheader though.

Final Work

Final Version.