Project 3 Process Documentation

Introduction:

In this project, we are tasked with creating a typeface specimen poster where we will best portray the usages, context, history of the font. In terms of functionality, we utilize values, colors, scales, weights, spacing, and layout to optimize hierarchy, readability, and overall aesthetic to the poster. I was assigned Futura, which is a geometric sans serif font that was created by Paul Renner in 1927 with the intent of creating an efficient and straight-forward font.

Initial Sketches:

Futura is a font created by Paul Renner in 1927 that is highly geometric with squares, near perfect circles, and triangles. It was designed to be a bold, efficient, and straightforward font. I wanted my posters to reflect that, something that is sophisticated but also an easy read with clear flow and hierarchy. I wanted to highlight the geometric shapes in the font, so I incorporated a few ideas where the shapes were underneath the letters or surrounding the letters.

I also wanted to incorporate the historical and modern context of the font. Futura was often used in older publications so my third sketch was one that was based off of an old Times magazine with a square in the center of the sketch. In a more modern context, Futura is used for several company fonts such as HP, Crayola, and Supreme. I personally really like streetwear, so I wanted to implement a composition that looked or insinuated the structure of a sweater. Another idea I had was to be less on the nose and use just the S for the entire poster with text surrounding it.

The feedback I received was that the sweater sketch, although a unique take on a type specimen, did not give the readers enough room for their own imagination, something I agreed with. I still wanted to make it work but also decided the large S sketch was probably a larger choice.

Initial Digitizations:

I ended up digitizing the sweater sketch, S sketch, having dabbled in some of the other sketches and deciding that I did not like them.

This sketch looked better in my head, but I realized digitally it just did not look good, so I scratched this idea.

I tried experimenting with changing the font into their geometric components, but severely hindered their readability.

This sketch was a little too on the nose with the sweater, and did not leave enough room for imagination for the reader.

I tried tracing the sweater to make it look less like a sweater, but the lines for the arms were not adding the value I wanted to have for my poster.

I tried to add a contrast of black and white to the sweater design. The black triangle is suggesting the arm for the sweater. I did not like this design because it did not look cohesive.

I digitized multiple designs from my sketches, and made several iterations to my sweater design because I really wanted it to work. However, the longer I worked on it, the more problems rose. Firstly, if I had just the sweater, then the design was too on the nose and did not seem creative enough. When I tried to make the design more abstract, it became increasingly less cohesive of a design. When I asked for feedback on the design, I realized I had to explain to them in-depth for them to understand, which was a red flag that my current design was too confusing and that I should instead try a more intuitive design.

Thus, I digitized a couple more designs and ended up liking the S design the most, which I showed to some classmates and got the critique that the S was a little bland and needed some more ‘spiciness’ as my friend put it. So from the original S design, I made a couple revisions.

1. Futura’s S is unique in that the optical center is skewed towards the top, as opposed to being at the center. Thus, I decided to split the S in two different colors to reflect that.
2. I changed the colors of a couple of the words to match the red of the S, to improve readability and the flow of reading.
3. I added some text to the lower left corner to balance with the Futura on the upper right corner.
4. I added circular text in between the circles in the S to highlight the geometry within the S itself.

With these in mind, I also decided to make an extension of the S from the bottom to balance with the Futura on the top right corner and to make the overall poster look more organic. The text on the lower right corner, although I thought balanced the Futura on the upper right nicely, I thought was too intrusive and did not conform with my vision of having a poster that flowed smoothly.

Mid-Project Critique:

These were the two designs I brought to crit. I wanted to know which one people liked more so I can iterate more onto it.

From critique, people seemed to like the overall S idea because it guides the reader throughout the entire poster. The general consensus was that the left poster was better because it meshed better with the rest of the composition as opposed to the poster on the right. I agreed with the overall sentiment of the critique and wanted to make a couple iterations based on the following concepts:

1. Create a larger flow by connecting another letter to the S.
2. Make the poster more intuitive that the theme of the poster is about Supreme by spelling out the word.
3. Change negative space between the text to better allow the readers to digest the information.

I tried to add a G to the S in order to have the poster flow better, similar to an infographic.

With this iteration of the S design, I wanted to have the poster mimic an infographic. I wanted to achieve this by adding another letter to the bottom of the S to create negative space where I can add more text. I tried a few variations, but did not get anywhere I was satisfied with.

Adding the letter ‘G’ did not make contextual sense because it is just as good as any other letter. Why not Z or Q or T? The only reason I added the G was because of the functionality of flowing nicely with the S, which I thought was not a good enough reason to use the G. The intention of adding the G was also to improve the reading hierarchy of the poster, but I felt like the G instead obscured the reading hierarchy. I also played around with the orientation and shape of the text within the negative space. I wanted to create more geometric shapes, so I put in a square but realized that it did not look natural and having a diagonal orientation made the negative space between the edge of the square and the S/G unbalanced.

I wanted to spell out Supreme and also create negative space to add more text.

With this iteration, I wanted to spell out Supreme to make it clear what I was talking about. Supreme is a streetwear brand that is highly integrated into pop culture, so I wanted to give it a graffiti aesthetic. I also wanted to create negative space between the letters to add text about the font for Futura. I thought this iteration had more potential that the other one because it made more sense contextually, but I thought the poster looked too messy with the ‘PREME’ in the lower corner being to much of a distraction. The reading hierarchy is there, despite being chaotic, but I liked my older design better.

In this iteration, I tweaked with the placement and size of the circle text in the top half. I decreased its size and centered it better, as to allow the reader more space to digest the information. In the bottom text, I added a circular header with a block of text to denote the circular and square geometry in Futura font. I decided to remove the block of text in the final rendition because I thought it did not reflect the top half of the text nicely:

my final poster

I went with this iteration as my final design. What I like about this final design is the balance between a historical context and its functionality. I insinuate the streetwear brand Supreme by having main shape of an S and using Supreme’s red. Paul Renner also designed Futura to be an efficient and straightforward font, and the S guiding the reader’s eye from top to bottom is an efficient design. To highlight the geometry embedded in Futura’s font, I created circular texts in two different forms at the top and bottom half of the S. I split the color of the S into two halves because the optical center of the S is skewed towards the top, which is unique to Futura’s font. The orientation of the S itself is slanted, as to better take up space on the design and to create visual interest on the poster. Another subtle change I made was the reduce unneeded tension between the side of the poster and the S by increasing the negative space on all sides of the main design.