Typeface — Bodoni
Each student was assigned different typeface, and the typeface that I received was:
Bodoni
Adobe Fonts offers four different types of Bodoni: Bodoni FB, LTC Bodoni 175, Bodoni URW, and Didoni URW.
Comparing with the original Bodoni font that Giambattista Bodoni designed, I found LTC Bodoni 175 the most similar to the original Bodoni typeface. However, this type only offers two fonts: regular and italics. If I want to use different boldness of text, I would most likely have to use Bodoni URW because this type is the most similar to the original typeface after the LTC Bodoni 175.
I’ll have to see if I want to use bold texts or not. If I need boldness, I would have to stick with the Bodoni URW. If bold texts are not necessary, then I can stick with the LTC Bodoni 175.
Thus, I think Bodoni will fit well for the title, but not for the body paragraph of my spread. Instead of just using Bodoni, adding another typeface that goes well with Bodoni will most likely make my spread more clean and organized to read. For this other typeface, however, using a sans serif that goes well with Bodoni will balance out the spread better than using another serif typeface.
I searched up some suggestions for typefaces that go well with Bodoni.
Here are some typefaces that I personally liked when it was used with Bodoni:
I downloaded the typefaces that I thought went well with Bodoni from the examples I found. I wrote the word Bodoni with the typeface Bodoni in large texts, and I wrote random words in small sizes with the sans serif typefaces I found to see which one fits well the most.
I ended up choosing Source Sans Pro, a sans serif typeface that is classified as grotesque sans-serif and humanist sans-serif.
Typeface Essay:
I searched some background information about Bodoni. I mainly focused on focused on how and when it was created, characteristics of typeface design, what effect it gives to audience, and when it was/is used.
Bodoni is a widely known serif typeface created by Giambattista Bodoni (1740–1813) in 1798, generally considered as a “transitional” font type. Massimo Vignelli, a multi-talented Italian designer well known for his New York City subway design, stated that “Bodoni is one of the most elegant typefaces ever designed.” Bodoni’s typefaces are classified as Didone or modern. Giambattista Bodoni was a designer influenced by the work of John Baskerville. There are various font styles from Bodoni’s original font in the late 1700s to American Type Founder’s (ATF) Bodoni revival in the early 1900s. The American Type Founders came out with a variant of Bodoni, designed by Morris Fuller in 1909, an italic and book version in 1910, italic and bold + italic in 1911, a bold shaded in 1912, and a shaded initials in 1914. Followed by more variants from 1915 through 1926, the Bodoni family carries fifteen font variations from Bodoni’s original font style.
There are several characteristics that identify the font, Bodoni. The original Bodoni design has high and sharp contrast between thick and thin strokes, with unbracketed serifs and closed aperture. Most letters with bowls have elliptical counter space. Some letters have ball serifs that incorporates extreme contrast, and “W” has an overlapping apex. Of all, Bodoni is highly recognizable for its centered “Q” tail and a slight hook in the “J,” which is widely accepted by printers and can be seen in many publications since the late 1700s.
Giambattista Bodoni had a long career that continuously changed and varied his font design, which ended up with a typeface that has condensed underlying structure with unbracketed serifs and extreme contrast between thick and thin strokes. Some versions of Bodoni are known to be hard to read because of the “dazzle” effect created by the alternating thick and thin strokes. The thick verticals draw too much attention compared to the thin strokes, causing confusion to tell which letter is which. This is common when the intended optical sizes displayed are printed at text sizes, at which point the thin strokes are hard to see. Therefore, it is important to use the right optical size of the typeface. To increase legibility, Bodoni fonts used at text sizes often have sturdy ‘thin’ strokes and serifs, or less stroke contrast, with more space between letters compared to the ones used on display. The typeface Bodoni is used for a variety of purposes. Early years, Bodoni was often used in books and posters. Then later on towards the 20th and 21st century, the typeface was used in advertisements and logos for companies as well. Some recognizable examples are logos for Giorgio Armani, Guerlain, CK of Calvin Klein, and the poster for the movie and play “Mamma Mia!”
From this essay I wrote about Bodoni, I shortened the text into brief bullet points for the video I’ll be creating for Project 4: Typeface Video.
- Designed by Giambattista Bodoni in 1798
- Inspired by Baskerville
- Often used in prints, logos, advertisements
- 15 different variants
- ‘Modern’ serif font, also known as Didone designs
- Earlier designs of Bodoni are now called ‘transitional’ fonts
- Contrast between thick and thin strokes
- ‘Dazzle’ effect highlights importance to use the right optical size of font
Then, I created a list of adjectives that best describes the typeface. I took a close look at the design of the typeface and also thought of the background information I searched for the essay to write the list down.
- Classic
- Elegant
- Modern
- Thick
- Thin
- Clean
- Fine
- Geometric
- Luxurious
- Condensed
Using the essay that I wrote, I made sketches of the possible layout I might use for my spread.
One problem here when I made the sketches is that I did not explore the sizes and spaces of texts as much as I needed to. All of the body texts were 10pts and the leadings were set to auto. Finding the right font size and leadings for different columns is what I need to focus on.
I explored different sizes and leadings ideal for my spread (7/11, 7.5/11, 8/11, 8.5/11, 9/12, 9.5/12). In my case, I matched small sized fonts with shorter leadings and large sized fonts with longer leadings to make the distance between the size of the type and the leadings of the type most ‘ideal’. By ideal, I mean the most comfortable to read when I print it and read the words out loud like Vicki has shown us last class. I printed them out to see how readable it is from sight. The first three types were too small to read, while the last two were too big in sizes and leadings. The fourth combination is close to what I thought was ‘easy to read out loud,’ or ‘readable’. I think I would just made the leadings a bit more large (like 11.5) to make the letters look easier to read.
Final size and leading for spread: 8.5/11.5
Images
I went on searching for images related to what I think is ‘Bodoni’. I used the adjectives I wrote down before to help myself find more images that matches with my typeface. The keywords that I focused on when I was finding my images were: classic, elegant, modern, clean, fine, and luxurious.
Here are some images I found that fits the adjectives. I tried using these images onto the sample spreads I made.
Trying to use image and match them with the title and body text was harder than I thought. There were so many factors I had to consider, like making sure the image doesn’t distract the texts, whether everything is aligned, grids, layouts, and more. Thinking about the images again, however, typewriters are a bit too literal for Bodoni. Bodoni is an old typeface and Giambattista Bodoni himself was an Italian typographer, type-designer, compositor, printer, and publisher.
Flower and balloon image is a bit too boring. Bodoni is a typeface that has high contrast between thick and thin strokes, which shows a sense of dynamic factor into the design. However, these flower and balloon image looks stiff for the dynamic-ness of Bodoni.
The last water image had too much ‘stuff’ happening. There were so many flowers and colors that it didn’t look simple and clean enough for Bodoni. However, I liked the idea of using water to show the dynamic yet clean and fine characteristics of Bodoni. Maybe I can find more images related to water, but more simple and modern.
Here are more images I found. This batch of images are overall more elegant and dynamic than the ones I found before. I believe the mood of these images match with Bodoni more than the previous ones, and I think I’ll be using one of these images for my final spread.
I tried applying these images onto some sample spreads to see how it looks like with texts.
After some exploration with the images and texts, I came up with three possible spreads I will be choosing and work my way in for the final. All three spreads match perfectly with the mood and adjectives of Bodoni, and the dark-colored background makes it clear for readers to see the white texts.
The first sample looks good, especially the tint of orange and blue makes the spread more interesting. However, I feel like the orange does seem a bit random (the fact that the orange is in the corner alone makes it seem like it has a special meaning to it, and I kind of think the fruit ‘orange’ doesn’t really match with the modern/elegant-ness of Bodoni). Also, this image was really hard to crop because I liked it better for the image to be large than small, however if I leave the image cropped large, then the arm/hand crops awkwardly when I fold the spread in half.
The second sample has the color red as its main color, showing dynamic-ness and elegance at the same time. I like how the women in the image is looking to the left, and I made the texts on the left to make it seem like the women is looking at the text. However, this image also had an issue with cropping. No matter how I crop, something was placed awkwardly or cut awkwardly when the spread was folded.
The last sample also has a main color of teal/turquoise, which I believe it shows elegance and modernness. I also like how the women in this picture has her face looking towards the right, which is why I put the texts on the right for the same reason as the previous sample. However this time, I feel like the flow of the overall spread is perfect. When I look at the spread, my eyes go from the women’s hand at the very left, up to her face, directed to the title, then flows down to the body paragraph. This natural flow from the combination of image and texts works really nice. I think I will be using this image for my final spread.
After I talked with Vicki about these spreads, she also mentioned that the very last spread was the best of all and I should be using this sample to work as my final. She also gave me several more suggestions I should consider while working on this spread. She mentioned how I need the person who spoke the quote written on the spread, and she suggested using different font styles for the quote and the author of the quote. Try playing the sizes, font styles, capitalization, and more. Also, she talked about how I need page numbers and citations. Finally, she suggested maybe using a color or two to create more interesting unity throughout the spread. She pointed out how all of my texts are in white, and maybe adding some colors may enhance the spread (but not use too much color because it may be too overpowering).
With Vicki’s suggestions, I added some edits to the spread. First of all, I put the author of the quote, as well as change the font styles of the quote and the author. I used Source Sans Light in all caps and Bodoni Italics for author to distinguish the two apart. I especially used Source Sans Light in all caps for my quote because by making it all caps, I thought it emphasized the quote, but by making the font style ‘light,’ I didn’t make the all caps too overpowering. Also, by making the author text in Bodoni italics, I balanced out the usage of sans serif font in regular with the serif font in italics.
Then, I added the page numbers in each corner of the spread, however, I decided to be a bit experimental with my page numbers. I made the numbers very large in teal/turquoise. Because the texts are white, the teal colored numbers look less bright. However, because the numbers are the only texts in the spread with different colors, it stands out more. I don’t want the page numbers to stand out TOO much, so I would have to either change the color, size, or font.
I tried changing the color of the page numbers darker to make it less stand out, but larger to make it more visible. I like how the hand and the page number intersects, as well as the end of the body paragraph intersect with the 3 as well. However, I feel like the color of the spread is too dull overall. I want to add a tint/spot of bright teal to both emphasize something and make the mood of the spread a little brighter.
I added bright teal to the letter “B” in title Bodoni. This is because I think the letter “B” is such an important and meaningful letter in Bodoni. Not only is it the first letter of the name of the font and the designer, but it has most of the characteristics of the typeface Bodoni, which I think represents Bodoni the most.
Also, I changed the typeface of the page numbers to Bodoni. Because I made the font size so big, it has to have a meaning to it. By making page numbers Bodoni, it shows a perfect example of the typeface (especially because I didn’t use the typeface Bodoni too much in this spread to show how the typeface looks like, this page number being Bodoni is important).
After critique, I was able to hear good suggestions for my spread. First of all the page numbers are placed awkwardly in the corners of the spread. Either put more clear space in between the numbers and the edge paper, or place the number right onto the edge of the paper.
Also, the guest designer mentioned how the quote on the spread looks awkward because it is the only one that is long in length. All other texts in the spread are mostly short and divided. However, the quote is the only one that is long and single-lined. He suggested maybe dividing the quote into different lines to make the length of the quote shorter, creating more unity among the spread.
The large page number had a debate between being effective or too overwhelming. I really like how the numbers and the text/image intersect each other. It creates an interesting moment and draws a bit of attention that helps with the flow of the layout. The downside of this large page number is that it can’t be more than two-digits long, however, it can be used on one-digit numbers. The spread layout of mine will be specifically for short-paged mediums no longer than two-digit numbered pages.
Final
Video
As I was working on the spread, I actually started searching up my music for the video. My main focus on the music, like how I searched up images for the spread, was finding something elegant and dynamic at the same time.
I happened to find a song called “Eager” by Def Starz, which was a song that had a modern/elegant vibe to it but was dynamic at the same because of the beat at the background. This song matched perfectly with Bodoni and it was exactly what I was looking for. The song was 4 minutes long, so I used the program Garageband to edit and shorten the song to one minute.
I started off by listing what I want to mention in my video. I listed down and numbered them in order to check the timeline of my video. I wrote down the lists similar to how I’d mention on the video, so I tried to make each content concise as possible.
Then, I began briefly sketching how my video layout would look like for each frame. This sketch is to get the just of how my video will look like, so although it is not perfect, I was able to sketch my ideas and what was on my mind.
Then, I created the sketches into digital layouts. After talking with Vicki with these first version of layouts, the font sizes were too big that when it is pulled up on screen, it would look overwhelming. She mentioned decreasing the size, and maybe using only two or three sizes of fonts to prevent the layout from looking to busy/distracting. She liked idea of using circles to point specific parts of the font, so I will most likely carry on this idea for my final.
For my final layout, I decided to go similar to my spread layout. Like the large page numbers, I have some texts that are large in size but toned down to dark teal color (the same color I used for the page numbers) to prevent it from grabbing too much attention. I also used the same dark teal color on the circles for specifying parts of the Bodoni characteristics. Then if there was something I wanted to highlight, I used the same bright teal color I used in the spread for letter “B”. Thinking of what I can do (what I can animate) with the circle in my layout, I decided to go with animating the circle as if it is a ball that directs audiences to different frames. The ball will act both as a direction leader and a specifier to explain the font characteristics of Bodoni.
Then I created this ‘keys’ section that will help me support my arguments that Bodoni is Modern, Classic, Elegant, and Dynamic. My main focus of the video is to show the audiences that Bodoni represents these four keywords. However, each physical characteristics that I will be mentioning in the video is categorized under multiple keywords, which is why I decided to create a ‘keywords’ section at the top right corner and highlight the keywords for each characteristics in light teal. This will help the audiences know which category the characteristics is a part of between Modern, Classic, Elegant, and Dynamic.
After showing Vicki my video, she mentioned two main mistakes/problems I made. One was using curved words, and the other was the ‘keywords’ section at the top right. She told me to discard any of the curved words and just leave them in a straight line. Also, she pointed out that the ‘keywords’ section at the top right makes it hard for audiences to read everything in time. Thus, because the keywords section is placed at the top right instead of left, it is hard to follow the flow of the layout (because our eyes naturally want to read left to right). After talking a bit more with Vicki, we decided to just discard the keywords section because I conveyed my message enough (about the four keywords of Bodoni) in the beginning and in the middle, so the keywords section at the top right will be unnecessary.
Vicki also pointed out a few more things that I should edit. She said to change the color of the line I use at the very beginning of the video (that swoops back at forth to show each keyword) thinner and make it have more color (although it was already light teal, it looked white on screen so make it more blue). Also the wording “bowl with elliptical counter space” is too long, which makes it hard for audiences to read everything in the time given. Shortening the wording to “elliptical counter space” will be a better solution.
Overall, creating the video on aftereffects was a helpful experience for me. Although we did use aftereffects once last year, I was still not confident enough to use the program. Through this project, however, I learned so many different techniques in aftereffects, and I became more confident with it. Also, working on the video with music of our choice was really fun (matching each frame to the beat was entertaining for me).