CDF Project 3, Part 1: Exercises

Exercise One — Typeface Tracing

Adobe Garamond, Didot, Helvetica, and Futura

These typefaces span a variety of styles. While tracing the same letters for each of the four typefaces, I noticed that Didot had the highest contrast and that the serif fonts tended to have higher contrast than the sans serif fonts in general here. In addition, the serif fonts had terminals on their a’s and r’s whereas the sans serif fonts did not. The sans serif fonts, Helvetica and Futura, had rounder, smoother curves while Garamond and Didot felt pointier with more straight lines and edges.

Exercise Two — Typographic Voice

For this exercise, I chose the words “melancholy”, “tradition”, and “purity” because these three words span a spectrum of feelings and weightiness.
I experimented with both serif and sans-serif typefaces, script typefaces, and all-uppercase typefaces to find final fonts that I felt helped to express the words’ meanings. All the words were created in size 24 font.

melancholy

Typefaces from top to bottom: Avenir Light, Bodoni 72 Book, Bradley Hand Bold, Baskerville, Didot, Kefa, Palatino, Papyrus, Times New Roman. Final selection: ‘melancholy’ in Palatino typeface

The word ‘melancholy’ holds a heavy connotation — one of deep sadness and severity. After exploring different typefaces with all lowercase letters, I found that serif fonts expressed the word more.From there, I thought some contrast was important. The final typeface I selected to help convey the word was Palatino. The Palatino typeface has a shorter x-height than some of the other serif fonts I experimented with and conveyed the somber, sort of deflated undertone of ‘melancholy’ the best for me.

tradition

Typefaces from top and bottom: Andale Mono, Arial, Arial Black, Avenir Light, Baskerville, Bodoni 72 Smallcaps Book, Copperplate Light, Lithos Pro, Marion, Moon Light, Orator Std, Times New Roman, Trebuchet MS. Final selection: ‘tradition’ in Bodoni 72 Smallcaps Book typeface

The word ‘tradition’ comes with a tone of seriousness and history. I explored a lot of typefaces with only uppercase alphabets and many sans serif fonts, however, I thought the serifs and older figures really helped to express the historical vibe of this word. I ended up selecting Bodoni 72 Smallcaps Book to best present the word ‘tradition’ with. This font comes in all uppercase letters, but with a short line-height. The serifs and terminals (specifically on the R here) really develop the feeling of history and context for ‘tradition’. In addition, the uppercase letters deliver a sense of seriousness that comes with the meaning of this word.

purity

Typesfaces from top to bottom: Avenir Light, Arial, Baskerville, Bodoni 72 Book, Future Condensed Medium, Geneva, Optima, Snell Roundhand, Trebuchet MS. Final selection: ‘purity’ in Geneva typeface

The word ‘purity’ is completely different from my other two words. This word holds an angelic, clear, clean meaning. This word has a sense of lightness about it that requires a simple, no-frills kind of typeface. I tested out mostly sans-serif fonts and even a scripted font. Ultimately, the sans-serif fonts were more effective in reinforcing the meaning of ‘purity’. My final selection was the Geneva typeface, which has low contrast and is sans-serif, reinforcing the simplicity and cleanliness of this word.

Final Selections

Final selections: ‘melancholy’ in Palatino typeeface, ‘tradition’ in Bodoni 72 Smallcaps Book typeface, ‘purity’ in Geneva typeface

Exercise Three—Typographic Hierarchy

Left: Linespacing, Right: Typographic Weights

Left: Horizontal Shift or Indentation, Right: Typographic Weight & Linespacing

Left: Typographic Weights & Horizontal Shift, Right: Horizontal Shift & Linespacing

Size Changes & Typographic Weight (with optional horizontal shifts and linespacing)