Project Three
Part 1, 2, 3
Part 1: Tracing
Part 2: Typographic Voice
In this exercise, I tried to find different types of font that best fit the meaning and the emotional feeling of the word: melancholy. Being that melancholy means, “a feeling of pensive sadness, typically with no obvious cause” (Apple dictionary), I thought that the text shouldn’t be too bold or authoritative, but rather thinner and more “windy.”
1- Apple Chancery: This font is very curvy with a lot of bends and thin lines. I thought that this font has a bit more emotion than other fonts that are just straight lines. Also, the feel of the font is quite light, which embodies the meaning of the word. I think that this is the best font that fits the word out of the list here.
2- Courier New: The font is very spaced out, with a lot of white space in between. Also, the the lines used are thin, almost the opposite of bold. I thought that because the feeling of the font is very light, it also fits with the meaning of the word quite well. The font is more long on the horizontal side, which give the impression that the word is almost lying down or wallowing.
3- Optima: The font is also very light in feel. Also thickness of the lines very within the word- I thought that this quality gives a certain depth to the feel of the word, and depth (I think) is an important element in emcompassing the meaning the word “melancholy.” The weight of each character in the word is very even which I thought makes this font even better at making one think deeply.
4- Plantagent Cherokee: This font has has very wide bottoms on its characters which give it a stable feeling- but since the bottoms are rather curved, they give an animated feeling. I thought that this font interesting in that certain characters are more grouped together making the word seem differently than usual.
5- Adobe Garamond Pro: This is the boldest font out of the list here. Although the font has a very heavy feeling, the way that it just pops out at you gives you an impression that is lasting in the mind. Also the font is very bottom heavy giving it the slight sensation of sadness. I thought that this font would be a nice addition to the list because it gives a similar sensation of the word despite it not having any of the features that other fonts here have.
Part 3: Type and Hierarchy
Typeface: Didot.
Typeface designer: Firmin Didot.
Year of design: In the period 1784 to 1811.
Category: Serif
Identifiable features: The stroke contrast is strong in Didot. The armature (framework) is quite condensed.
Texts that adequately expresses the character:
