Project 3 — Type & Hierarchy
Kruti Koppolu
Part One Exercise One: Typeface Training
The first exercise consisted of tracing various typefaces, namely Adobe Garamond, Didot, Helvetica and Futura. Tracing the typefaces made the differences in each of them much more apparent. Some of the observations I made can be found below —
- The letter ‘M’ in Didot and Futura has much sharper corners than in Helvetica. In fact, the bottom middle point of the ‘M’ in Futura goes below the baseline for that typeface while that doesn’t apply for the other three typefaces.
- Overall, Helvetica is a much more blunt type face as compared to the other three.
- To me, Adobe Garamond, which is one of my go-to typefaces, seems very similar to Times New Roman.
- While Helvetica and Futura are much thicker in weight, Didot has extremely thin lines.
- The empty spaces in the letters ‘g’ and ‘a’ are much more round in Futura than they are in the other three typefaces.
- The descender mark for Adobe Garamond and Didot seem to be much lower than that of Helvetica and Futura.
- Adobe Garamond and Didot seem to have more of a grace and/or flourish as type faces compared to Helvetica and Futura.
Part One Exercise Two: Typographic Voice
The second exercise revolves around exploring how choosing a particular typeface affects the meaning and emotion associated with a word. The word I chose was Serendipity.
I began this exercise by thinking about how the word made me feel. By definition, serendipity means fortunate happenstance of the occurence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way. To begin with, the word has positive connotations. On top of that, the added “chance” factor gives off a whimsical, almost ethreal feeling but at the same time also feels very attainable. After creating multiple iterations of the word ‘serendipity’ using different typefaces, the five iterations I chose can be found below.
Chalkduster
I started off by using Chalkduster. I thought this would be a good starting point because the typeface is a little off bit and gives off a very casual aura, both which I think are important characteristics of the word itself.
ESSTIXThirteen
For my next iteration, I wanted a typeface that was more flowy but not excessively so. Though this one does fall in that category, it still felt like something was missing, the word wasn’t being conveyed enough or in the right way yet.
Giddyup Std
Continuing along the lines off whimsical and flowy, I chose the Giddyup Std typeface. I like the curves of the font and it’s overall playful nature but at the same time, it felt too childish for me.
Edwardian Script ITC
Right off the bat, I think this typeface exudes both a delicate beauty and elegance. I love the swirls of the capital ‘S’ and the way the letters are joined together to create an exquisite feeling. This typeface reminds me porcelein china and expensive wedding cards. Though I do think the word is aesthetically pleasing here, I feel like it pushes the word from being too playful in the last typeface to too sophisticated with this one. That element of attainibility is lost here.
Harrington
To me, this typeface is the one. It brings together all the elements I’ve been trying to combine. It has the flow aura/element to it while not actually being very flowy and it also has a certain subtle class to it as well. Additionally, it brings out the whimsical part of the word without being overwhelming, making the word feel very real and attainable overall.
Part One Exercise Three: Typographic Hierarchy
Linespacing
Typographic Weights
Horizontal Shift or Indentation
Typographic Weight & Linespacing
Typographic Weights & Horizontal Shift
Horizontal Shift & Linespacing
Size Change & Typographic Weight
Part 2: Type & Hierarchy
The final part of the third project is to create a type specimen poster about a specific typeface. My chosen typeface is Futura and the research I’ve done can be found below.
About Futura
Futura was created between 1924 and 1926 by a German type designer named Paul Renner. Although Renner was not a member of the Bauhaus, he shared many of its views, believing that a modern typeface should express modern models rather than be a rival of a previous design. Futura was commercially released in 1927, commissioned by the Bauer type foundry.
Derived entirely from geometric forms (near-perfect circles, triangles and squares), with strokes of near-even weight and contrast and distinctively tall lowercase letters that rise even above its capitals, Futura looks like efficiency itself: clean, standardized, legible, stylish without any overt “style.” It is based on strokes of near-even weight, which are low in contrast. The lowercase has tall ascenders, which rise above the cap line. The uppercase characters present proportions similar to those of classical Roman capitals.
Futura has been and remains an important typeface family and is used on a daily basis for print and digital purposes as both a headline and body font. The font is also used extensively in advertisements and logos such as by IKEA, Volkswagen, Crayola and HP. It has been used in various tv shows such as Lost, and the American version of Sesame Street, as well as all throughout the well-known film, V for Vendetta. It is also featured on every album cover of Vampire Weekend and on the logo of Dominoes. Yet, the crowning achievement and honor of the typeface is that it has walked on the moon. The Apollo 11 mission chose this lettering for the plaque they left up there.
Design Process Stage 1: First Round of Iterations
The design process for the typeface poster began with an initial round of poster iterations. Going into it, I knew that I wanted to highlight Futura’s crisp, geometric appearance as well as have the viewer’s eye have its attention drawn to the heading (i.e. the word ‘Futura’) itself.
While playing around on InDesign, I started off by working on the heading of the poster. I wanted to incorporate a pun/clever thought into it to make it more appealing and viewer friendly. Additionally, to highlight the geometric nature of the typeface, I wanted to use shapes within the poster. As I was iterating, I focused more on placement of the text and overall effectiveness of the poster, without bringing the element of color into it. The idea was to get the skeleton of the poster down before working on the next layer.
On the left is my final version of my first iteration of my typeface poster for Futura. I developed the idea behind the circle more, to serve not only as a path for the word ‘Futura’ but also as a word cloud with all the key terms about the typeface. These key terms are larger in size, bolded and in some cases italicized to make them stand out from the other characters in the word cloud. The purpose of this word cloud was two-fold: 1. To play with hierarchy, and 2. For viewers to be able to take away something from the poster at a quick glance. Unfortunately, I was pretty unsuccessful with my attempt at the word cloud and it didn’t really come out the way I wanted. Additionally, after placing the text in, I felt like I wasn’t full utilizing the space in the poster well enough. Moreover, there was too much text, which would be an incentive to read and learn anything about the typeface. Overall, I was pretty dissatisfied with the poster at this point.
Design Process Stage 2: Back to the Drawing Board
After my first iteration, I scrapped the idea entirely and went back to the drawing board. I spent a lot of time thinking about what I wanted to communicate most from my poster — was it the anatomy of the typeface, or the history, or both? I also tried to think about the poster the way I thought about the black squares assignment — as one composition, not as different pieces that had to be placed in different locations within the poster. Most of all, I thought hard about how I could use the nuances in Futura to my advantage. The two elements I wanted to keep from my first iteration was highlighting the heading and somehow incorporating a pun, or clever thought into the poster. Below you can find pictures of my written thoughts and sketches of new ideas that I had.
I started off by rewriting thoughts I had about the typeface, from puns to what I should focus on the poster, and even to references of Futura in our daily lives and mainstream culture. This helped because it was useful having everything laid down on paper for me to see and analyze and it helped me organize my thoughts in terms of what was important to include and what wasn’t.
After scribbling down thoughts, I began to roughly sketch out visualizations and ideas in my head.
From the above sketches you can see that I still focused on the placement and aesthetic of the title, but decided to change the orientation of the poster. I also tried to bring the individual letters into the poster and have them play more of a role. For instance, I thought it would be interesting to highlight the M and W because of their extremely sharp apexes, straight lines, perfect angles and moreover, because when you flip them around you get the other letter. I ultimately ended up compiling a list of elements that I knew I wanted in my poster, which can be found below, before moving on to my digital iterations.
Design Process Stage 3: Digital Iterations
As with the first round of iterations, my primary focus was on creating and finalizing the skeleton of the poster before stepping in to make it look good. Therefore, I spent the first half of my digital iterations working in just black and white in Illustrator. My main aim was to go for a simplistic, modern, sleek feel, just like the typeface itself. I didn’t want to bombard the poster with text, but instead, keep it simple and attractive. Images of my iterations can be found below —
In this iteration, I incorporated all the elements I inteded to along with a quote about the typeface by the designer of the typeface. I really liked the interplay between the letters d, b, q, p and the image they created. I think it emphasizes some of the important qualities of Futura such as straight lines, geometric shape and a certain overall symmetry to the letters. My biggest problem with this iteration was the big white space in the center of the poster. I didn’t like the divide and feeling of emptiness it created in the middle. To me, it felt like something was missing and hence the design was incomplete.
My second iteration incorporated the letters M and W. As you can see, I started to play around with which elements to include in each iteration. The quote became a constant because I really liked the way it fit with the heading. I also introduced the alphabet in this iteration so that one could get a feel of the typeface by looking at the letters. Additionally, I also changed the heading from Medium to Condensed Medium. While I was interested in exploring the relationship between the M and W, and had a lot of fun doing so, I think it ultimately ended up creating too much of a distraction. The design became too overwhelming and there is a lot going on in this iteration which could be potentially confusing or unappealing.
In this third iteration, I continued to play around with the letter M. I chose to rotate it because I really liked the space it created on the right side of the poster. This enabled me to align everything to the right and create a clean, neat, balanced feel to the poster. I really like this iteration and the way the placement for every element worked out. It looks very modern and crisp while not being overdone at the same time.
What I love most about this iteration is the play on letters on the very right of this poster. I think it does a good job of highlight the straight edges and lines, along with displaying the similarities between the d, b, q, p while also showing the interesting element of the j in Futura. For the heading, I used Futura Condensed Extra Bold. I really like this design because of the lettering on the right, and how it creates a balanced space on the left for the rest of the text.
Overall I really liked the third and fourth iterations. I felt that they achieved my goal of being simplistic and modern, more than the first two iterations. I chose the fourth iteration and iterated on that a couple times more. The images can be found below.
I decided to take out the text regarding the different styles of the typeface because the design seemed a bit crowded with it. Additionally, I felt that in comparison to the other elements in the poster, it wasn’t adding as much worth or relevance. After taking it out, I liked the poster much better. The space seemed more balanced and it had a unifying clean effect.
In the next three iterations, I played around with the style of the heading, as shown in the images below.
I finally choose the second iteration of iteration #4 with the heading in Futura Medium. I made this decision because I felt that the Medium really brings out the essence of the typeface and ties all the elements of the poster together really well. The other styles seemed mismatched and out of place, and did not contribute to unifying the poster.
After finalizing this design, I moved on to adding color to my poster. The color scheme I had in mind was a dark background and adding colors to the different elements in the poster to make them pop. The different iterations can be found below.
I really loved how the colors fit together in this design. Having a dark background with lighter colors for the different elements really makes them pop. Not only do they stand out really well, but they are able to simultaneously stand indepedently as well as help bring out the other elements as well. For example, the orange in the Futura and the green of the alphabet stand well on their own, but also subtly help the other pop too. I made the ‘e’ above the ‘a’ a different shade of orange to highlight the overlapping, as well as emphasize the pun in the title. The only thing I felt needed to be improved was the big lowercase letters on the right side. At this point, they just blend into the dark background. They needed to be highlighted a little more.
The iterations below deal with emphasizing the lowercase letters on the right by highlighting their outlines. I tried different colors to see which would go best with the green letters immediately in between them, but also with the rest of the poster as well. The images of these iterations can be found below.
After iterating with different colors such as yellow, teal, cyan blue and white, I finally went with a light grey. The other colors clashed too much with the green and I wanted something that would still make the green pop while being very subtle itself.
Design Process Stage 4: The Final Product
The above image is my final typeface poster for this project. Overall, I am quite happy with how it turned out. If anything, I would try to color print it one or two times before printing out the final crit version. This is because the colors look different when exported to Adobe pdf. As a result, the ‘e’ appears more red and the grey on the lowercase letters is very faint, making them hard to see from a distance.
This assignment really pushed me to think and iterate more. It was a welcome challenge and I genuinely feel more confident in my abilities moving forward.
