Project 3: Type & Hierarchy
Process Documentation
About Avenir
I was assigned the typeface Avenir. Before starting the poster sketching phase for the project, I did some research about the type face history and what makes it unique.
These are some traits I found interesting about about Avenir:
- Avenir is French for “future”
- This quote: ‘The quality of the draughtsmanship — rather than the intellectual idea behind it — is my masterpiece. It was the hardest typeface I have worked on in my life. Working on it, I always had human nature in mind. My personality is stamped upon it. I’m proud that I was able to create Avenir.’
- The geometrical yet organic aspects of the typeface.
Additional to these points, the type face itself is very minimal and so I wanted to design my poster around these attributes.
Process: Poster Ideas and Sketching
For my first and second sketches I really liked how the enlarged characters A and V created a minimal composition all whilst exaggerating the figure of the letters. I wanted to place the copy about the creator between the two slants and have the bottom third of the poster include the typeface name and a quote. I generally wanted the poster for this sketch to be black and white to emphasize the stark lines the letters created.
For sketch #3 I thought about doing a poster inspired by the periodic table, where the elements would be represented by capital letters and lower-case letters. Any additional information about the “element” would be placed on the lower half of the poster.
For sketch #4 I was thinking about how I could create a minimal yet exciting composition by misaligning and rearranging the letters within Avenir and future. My main goal for this sketch was to have the “I” in Avenir be a symbol for an information box, where I would include text about Adrian Frutiger and a character set. I also thought about having a black background with a white circle enclosing the words.
Process: Digital Iterations
Iterations #1, 2, 3
I worked on several iterations on this specific composition because I liked how the letters created a different and almost futuristic image. I decided to move on from my initial sketch because the poster felt claustrophobic with too much copy in the white slant. For iterations #2 and #3 I decided to only include the type face name, designer and a short quote, allowing the enlarged A and V to represent more of an image, rather than letters.
Iteration #4
I also played around with the jumbled letter composition and tried to create a playful vibe by arranging the letters of AVENIR. I wanted the ‘I’ of Avenir to represent the information box but was not able to do successfully so due to all the rivers the justification created.
The main feedback I received from the class was that the ‘I’
didn’t look like letter or even part of the word. Also there was some confusion as to why FUTURE was placed above AVENIR, without giving the information that avenir means future in French. I decided to abandon this design because there was just one too many problems.
Final Iteration
For my final design I decided to work from iteration #2 but reversed the colors to have black letters against a white background, this way the A and V seemed more representational of the letters rather than ambiguous black shapes as in the previous iteration. I included the designer’s name and quote to balance out the negative space.
Conclusion and Feedback
Overall I am satisfied with my poster but looking back now I wish I had done a more bolder/exciting design. I was trying to achieve a minimal feel to the poster in order to mimic the design of Avenir, but I think I played it too safe and the poster overall ended up a bit bland. One feedback I had received was how the composition may have been more sound if I had placed “Avenir” to the right of the poster, allowing the slant to be continued throughout the lower half of the poster. Another useful tip I learned was to do test prints and to look at the composition of the poster from a more distant view to better identify problems within the poster that initially is difficult to pin point from a zoomed in perspective. I think this project was not only super informative about typography but also very thought provoking within the design process.
