Project 3 — Typeface Spread
November 27: After doing research and writing my essay on Roboto, I wanted to use the adjectives and descriptive statements to be portrayed on the spread. At first, I started with incorporating a photo into the spread. However, after a few sketches, I wanted to show how Roboto is used as a small body text and a display text, showing that it is a ‘dual-nature’ font; therefore, instead of using a photo in the spread, I decided to use enlarged text (in Roboto) to balance with the smaller body text (the Roboto essay).
After getting feedback from Vicki and Juan, I realized that I should avoid using complex lines and format, making the spread simplistic like the font. Also, I decided to not use shapes, because when thinking of shapes and fonts, Futura comes to mind; therefore, I decided to not use shapes within the spread.
I was thinking of using a similar font (i.e. Helvetica) to compare Roboto to it, but after more exploration, I wanted to use that comparison within the Typeface Video (the next project). I realized that I need to be cautious of enlarging the letters/symbols, because Roboto is too simple of a font to enlarge on a spread, which could be too boring. Because I was struggling with communicating Roboto’s characteristics and history, I wanted to talk to Andrew, because his favorite font is Roboto. Because Roboto was created in 2011, I struggled with portraying its history. Also, I was stuck on how “Roboto is the Helvetica rip-off.” Andrew helped by encouraging me to explore Roboto’s open curves and friendliness. Also, he told me to stray away from the “Helvetica rip-off” because a lot of fonts are very similar to Helvetica and that many fonts are inspired by each other.
After doing the column exercise, going into the Typeface Project (#3), I was more aware of “rivers and gaps,” readability, and harmony, which helped me a lot once I started incorporating my sketches into InDesign.
After making these first few spreads, I wanted to stray away from color blocking, because there was no good reason for using those “blockings”/shapes in the spreads.
After finishing Project 4, I went back to working on the spread. Also, I added more information to my essay. I noticed the background was ‘lonely,’ so I added a semi-colon to the background. I was contemplating between a colon and a semi-colon. The colon just seemed like two shapes, which is not what I wanted, so I changed the orientation of the semi-colon. To me, this created movement from page to page. To create hierarchy, I changed the yellow type (readable, rhythmic, and reliable) to strokes. This gave more focus to ‘Roboto,’ ‘&,’ and ‘!’
