Lato — The Font
- Project Typeface
The Project here is for everyone to create a typographical specimen for the chosen typeface which is Lato for me in this case. We need to look at the history of this typeface and showcase of its usage, application and fonts.
2. The Research
Lato is a san-serif typeface created by Polish font designer Lukazs Dziedzic in 2010 Summer, the word “Lato” means “Summer” in polish. This typeface comes in 18 styles and different weights and now extended to 3000+ glyphs per style. It’s known for its round edges and the approachable warmth it gives to the reader. It’s now one of the most popular fonts on Google font and widely used pretty much everywhere.
3. The Usage
3.1 Magazines
This typeface is highly used on websites to deliver information directly. For example, it’s used for a Polish Jewish magazine named Chidusz. As this typeface is designed by a Polish font designer, its use for Polish makes it standout even more. Lato is used in for body content for the magazine to appear to be approachable which is the main goal for this magazine: to introduce Polish Jewish community to non-Jewish wider audiences.
3.2 Business Card and Promotional Items
For business cards, use of this particular font could make the card appears to be very simple and neat, delivers the important information straight away to its receivers. On promotional items, the delivery of this font is even better as the information or slogan shall make themselves memorable without any distractions. For example, the stationary brand p.michno by designer Patrycja Michno.
3.3 Websites (more in the content paragraphs)
As this font is so simple yet full of characters, it pairs fantastically with more than 15 fonts. Mostly the pairing would be when Lato is used as content font in paragraphs and other font to be the headline font.
For example, the social developement community called Codepen.io which allows developers to write code in their browsers and see results as they build. Lato the font is used all over this website for content, as for obvious reasons that developers would want to see their codes as clear as possible.
4. The Design process
4.1 The Big Why & The Inception Sheet
The why is always the most important part. For the characters this typeface have, being user friendly and making statement is always the essential. I want my design to be clean, straight forward and as symetrical as possible.
I want to make the landing page to be informative, simple and have a lot of open space. Basically just black and white, with the information part to be highlighted in colour.
4.1 The Insperation & The Moodboard
When I think of this typeface, the first feeling came to mind is professional and approchable. Some people may think that being professional could be cold and create distance, however this is not how I felt. The more I looked at the round edges of this typeface, the softer it gets. When I started to create the mood boars, lost of vibrant yet soft colours caught my attention. Then I saw the symmetrical display, I realised this is how it should be presented.
4.3 The Design Process: wireframes & style tile
During the design process, I had ideas about how the information to be presented in sections and how they should be interacting and playful. However, after the second draft and put them on actual page, I realised how complicated the page could turn out to be and became just the contrary to the goal of simple and clean. So scratch that and start again.
5. The Prototype
6. The Conclusion
This landing page is to showcase the versatility of this typeface and how it could be used in different situations and platforms. The black and white/colours brought through the cleanness and simplicity of the feeling this typeface provides.
