Didot
Type & Hierarchy
History of the Didot Typeface
The Didot typeface was named after the famous French printing and type producing family, and falls under the Modern or Didone classification. The Didot family set up one of the first printing presses in the newly independent Greece. Most of the well-known Didot typefaces were developed between 1784–1811. Firmin Didot cut and cast the type in Paris and his brother Pierre Didot created an edition of La Henriade by Voltaire using the type. The Didot typeface is known for an increased stroke contrast, more condensed armature, and an increased stress. Due to its thick verticals and thin defining lines in digital settings it is difficult to read and can cause an effect called ‘dazzle’. Didot is part of the French Neoclassical style and is evocative of the Age of Enlightenment.
Project Purpose
This project combines the variables of scale, weight, linespacing, indentation, tone, value, texture, and position to create a poster for the Didot typeface. This poster is both informed by the history of the font, and also its physical characteristics that were observed through many design iterations.
Design Process
Initial Sketches
Desk Crit #1
Focus on what the font means to you and what you want to draw attention to in your poster. The layouts where you use white space creatively are good, and you can push that and look to use the white space in characters like in the sketch with the 47 in the center.
Digital Iterations
Chosen Pieces for in Class Critique
Class Crit # 1
Don’t put letters inside other letter forms because it takes away from the natural form of the character. The use of negative space when putting the text below the 4 and above the 7 works well in the first one. The form in the second one is interesting but it is difficult to tell that it is the 4 and 7 if you do not know the font very well. The alignment on the first one with the 4 and 7 doesn’t have to be like a line of text, because 47 has no significance thus the 7 could be brought down to align with the top of the right side side of the 4.
More Iterations
Desk Crit #2
Make the year above Didot smaller so that it doesn’t compete for attention, and pair down the text at the top of the poster so that it isn’t top heavy and the negative space created by the form can remain. The dash between the year should be longer, and the 4 and 7 should be brought in visually not just in the body of text, so that it is clear what the form is.
More Iterations
Final Design
Reflection on the Process
My final poster incorporates the unique form of the terminals of the 4 and 7 in the Didot typeface. This typeface is characterized by thin serifs and strong vertical lines paired with delicate horizontal strokes. The organic and mirrored forms of the 4 and 7 stood out to me and I wanted to showcase them clearly in my composition. The proximity of the two forms creates some visual tension which draws the viewers eye from the large text for Didot and down to the center of the page. The names of the creators at the bottom are around a much smaller version of the 4 and 7 and lend a bit of context to the form above it. At that small of a scale the interaction between the terminals of the numbers creates clear tension and draws the viewers eye to that section of the characters and mirrors the form above to show the viewer what the poster is expressing. I also looked at the terminal of the t in Didot and placed it with the dates so that you can see the same curved form of the 8 and how it fits within the terminal of the t. The bottom terminal of the t then curves up the edge of the form and shows the repeated curves in this typeface that occur at scales and positions that would not likely be seen in classic text.
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