CDF P3 Typography Poster
Project Overview
The goal of this project is to create a poster that communicates the font Helvetica, what it is, how it is created, and some of its interesting characteristics.
Helvetica Overview
Typeface : Helvetica
Designer: Max Miedinger & Eduard Hoffmann
Year designed: 1957
Type Classification: Sans-Serif Grotesque
How it is created: Helvetica was created by Max Miedinger and Eduard Hoffmann at the Hass type foundry in Switzerland in 1957. Helvetica was originally called Die Neus Hass Grotesk and it was designed to be neutral and not to convey any meaning in itself. Its characters usually have vertical or horizontal terminations on their strokes and it has monotone stroke weights.
Specific Uses: Helvetica is one of the most widely used sans-serif typefaces. It is a popular choice for commercial work marks, typeface for computer systems like iOS, and font of major brand logos. It is also widely adopted by the U.S. government and can be seen in everyday settings.
My Understanding of Helvetica
I believe that Helvetica is a font that is clean, direct, neutral, and comfortable. It is not a fancy font but it can be extremely expressive with its simplicity. In order to communicate that idea, the concept of order and simplicity will be expressed the most.
Initial Sketches
The above are my sketches. Many of the sketches are very playful and that does not convey the idea of Helvetica. At first, I try to come up with ways to make the posters look visually appealing and I thought of many interesting techniques to achieve that goal. This can be shown in the first four sketches. However, that is not Helvetica so I eliminated elements that are playful. The poster needs to clearly show that the font that is being introduced and demonstrate its characteristics. As a result, I decide to use digital iteration on the first and the fifth sketch. Even though the design and layout is pretty standard and not really eye-catching, I believe that it communicates the ideas better.
Initial Digital Iterations
This first one is the standard format of a poster. The title is at the top with a big character, and in the bottom there is a text introduction and the character set. However, there are many problems. The textarea is not aligned properly and there is an awkward white space on the right. The character sets are too big and since it is oblique, it looks very different from the other characters.
The second one is too playful and I don’t have any specific reason for choosing the those characters to be big. The diagonal placement of the text is also unnatural.
For the third one, I want to express the straight lines of Helvetica and let the viewer fill in the gaps. That’s why I put only part of the “H” and I put text description on the side with character sets at the bottom.
I have learned a lot from my mistakes in the first iteration. Line alignment is critical to creating order and the size, font style, and the character I choose should all have meanings and reasons behind those decisions. They cannot be random. Furthermore, highlighting information by utilizing hierarchy is essential.
Second Digital Iteration
After the first iteration, I realize that communicating the concept behind Helvetica is more critical than using fancy visual techniques to draw attention. My new four digital iterations are below.
The first one is the standard format, with the name at the top, a big character in the middle, and text description and the character set below. It is a safe choice.
The second one rearranges the word “helvetica” to enlarge it so that the straight lines of Helvetica can be expressed more clearly. At first the smaller characters are left aligned, but then the instructor gave me the advice to align the characters by its center so the effect will look better. However, the title is redundant because I mentioned Helvetica twice.
The third one is similar to the one in the 1st iteration but the character set is put on top to utilize white space more efficiently.
The fourth one aims to show the character set in greater detail so the alphabets are all shown. However, I didn’t distribute the number of pairs in each line properly since 26 is an awkward number. Furthermore, there is no need for the “H” to be that big.
One important thing I realize from the 2nd iteration is that the huge chunk of text is unnecessary. The viewers are not willing to read text clustered together and it also creates distraction from the large Helvetica symbols. Furthermore, redundant information should be eliminated and the interaction between objects are important. They need to cooperate together to convey information instead of drawing attention away from each other. After the instructor’s advice, I decide to use the 2nd and 4th one for my third digital iteration.
Third Digital Iteration
For both of them, I eliminated the chunk of text and use the white space more. I give the information of the font creators and the year created and the info is presented through text hierarchy.
There are problems for both posters. The first one is not visually appealing and the character sets are not aligned properly to embody order. Moreover, the text in the bottom looks strange and spaces are wasted in the bottom.
For the second one, the text in the top and bottom are both drawing attention, distracting viewer from the text in the middle. In addition, the hierarchy for the top text is not strong enough and the alignment for the character set in the bottom looks strange. It is left-aligned but the right creates rugged edges.
I believe that the 2nd poster is more promising so I decide to do the final iteration on the 2nd one.
Final Work
I middle aligned the character set so that it spreads more evenly and I also aligned the set with the character “h” to create order. On the top right, I wrote the font creators and the year it is created. I leave empty space in the top left and bottom right to create contrast and also help viewers focus on the three parts with content. By using a dark background with the white font, I think it shows Helvetica in a stronger way and also shows the magic of its lines.
Conclusion
I really learned a lot in P3 typography and the concept of alignment, hierarchy, size, font style, and many more. My instructors and peers gave me invaluable advice to help me iterate and improve my work and it is really a lot of fun playing with font.
