CDF Project 3: Type & Hierarchy
About
The aim of this project was to create a poster that incorporates our typeface that we were assigned and to showcase it as best as possible. We were allowed to use grayscale and one color. It was important to play with some key design elements such as scale, weight, linespacing, indentation, color, tone, value, texture, and position. The first part was to research the font and draw inspiration from already existing posters that make use of the font. Then, I drew a couple of ideas and chose a couple to continue further iterations. My final poster is displayed below.
Research
Font: Baskerville
Year: 1754
Designed by: John Baskerville
Distinguished by: sharp edges, high contrast, generous proportions, transition between classical and modern fonts.
History: John Baskerville was a servant whose boss recognized his talents in penmanship and encouraged him to pursue his talents. He was actually illiterate but practiced handwriting and inscription and he echoed this in his typeface. Baskerville is known as a transitional typeface, which acted as a bridge between old and modern styles. Initially many people didn’t like the sharp contrast of the font, but during the Monotype Revival, the typeface was brought back to popularity. This typeface has been used for print media, newspapers and books, mainly for titles or to highlight something important. However, it is often not recommended for posters anymore because of its thin strokes and the difficulty in seeing these strokes from far away.
Text that describes the font: Pan-European text that travels; Typography is two-dimensional architecture; Type design is about function. Drawing pretty shapes isn’t enough; A figure of sharp neoclassical form does not balk at contrast; Indeed to be bold is to display where you are thick and where you are thin.
Distinct features of the font: The uppercase “G” and “E” are some of the unique characters in Baskerville, as the E almost seems to replicate an underbite and the G is very round. There is a sharp contrast between thick and thin strokes. Also, the typeface in general takes up a lot of space so it is used for large spaces.
Character Set:
Inspiration
While researching Baskerville, the main things it is used for: book titles, books, posters and logos. This gave me the impression that Baskerville is used to highlight something important and that is what I wanted to focus on in my poster. Importance can be shown with scale and boldness. Hence, I wanted to make the font look like it is taking up space but not to the point that the whole poster looks full. As seen
Initial Poster Ideas (Sketches)
My initial sketches tried to explore the legacy of Baskerville, in that it is used in many books and has existed for many years. It was also known as a transition font between archaic fonts and new, more modern fonts. So, I tried to create a poster that played with traditional layouts like a newspaper but with a creative, modern finish . In some of my sketches, I also played with the illusion of a bookcase, or books stacked on top of each other. In other sketches, I wanted to use hierarchy, to highlight either the year it was created in or the name “John Baskerville”. Another idea I had was to use it to create classic labels, such as a labels for a wine bottle. However, doing some further research, I couldn’t find any evidence that it was used for labels like that, so I decided to digitally iterate other designs. For digital iterations, I decided to focus on 2,9, as these were the main two that I felt I could play around and develop the most due to their flexibility with spacing of the letters and numbers and how much white space .
Digital Iterations
~ First Digital Iterations ~
These were my initial experiments with number 2. In all my designs, I wanted to focus on the “1754” because I think the date was very important, being that this is such an archaic font that has only recently started gaining popularity. Hence, the numbers definitely took the hierarchy in all my iterations. Furthermore, I wanted to show its longevity as it was created centuries ago but is still very relevant in print which is what it was created for. I also wanted minimal information on the page as Baskerville emphasized its use for titles and hierarchical information. With these first iterations, I wasn’t very happy because the lines as was said in my feedback seemed more for decoration and less to serve any purpose. Furthermore, the balance of white space and use of lines seemed very restricting. It creates a small triangle where the quote fits in but it feels tight. Also, the “John” is a very large size and draws the audience’s attention, but this isn’t something I considered very important in the grand scheme of things. Overall, I don’t think this design was very successful and decided to move away from it.
As part of my first iterations, I also focused on number 9. Here I wanted to play with positioning and use the space of the poster to vary it. Hence I divided the poster into 3 thirds, and each of the thirds had a key piece of information. Theoretically, this seemed successful, but in practice, this design posed some concerns. One, due to the page being divided, it was hard for the viewer to know what to focus on the page and this caused confusion, contradicting the simplistic approach I was trying to portray. Two, the use of the character set in the background crowded the space and the balance of white space and filled up space was not achieved. In my initial critique, it was suggested that I play around with creating the same idea but vertically. So in my second iterations, I decided to focus more on that.
~ Second Digital Iterations ~
Once again, I split the page into thirds but decided to concentrate the information in the middle, still spread out. I think the attention given to the letters and where they should go on the page was much better as there were not too many tension points, which doesn’t support the confident nature of Baskerville. I added the legacy because I thought the letters on their own seemed kind of boring. However, due to this, the hierarchy was sort of lost as once again it was hard for viewers to know what to concentrate on. Furthermore, when I printed it out in grayscale the difference between the darker grays and the purple wasn’t clear enough, so the message of importance on the “1754” wasn’t conveyed to the viewer. The letters and the ombre worked a lot better than before and displayed the character set well, but still gave a sense of being cluttered around the page with no specific purpose. I was given feedback to focus on alignment of the letters as spacing between them were inconsistent. Also, it was suggested I should play around with scale and colors in order to convey the hierarchy of the information I considered important better.
~ Third Digital Iterations ~
I decided to no longer play it safe with the scale of my letters and how they fit on the page. It wasn’t important for viewers to see the whole character set in its entirety, but rather give a sense of it to appreciate its balance of roundness and sharpness. I wanted to make the layout more interesting by playing with thirds but in a more diagonal way. Hence, in the top diagonal third I put the key information of his name and the year. The other two thirds I focused on the character set but this time due to scale the focus on the viewers was still on the key information. I also think it was a good idea to group all the important information together but use scale and color to differentiate between the various information. I tried adding the “B” but it didn’t look good and seemed to be the focus of the poster which wasn’t the important part. In the final iteration, I deleted even more letters and made some even bigger as I liked the white space it was creating. Finally, in all the iterations, I reflected some of the letters vertically or horizontally to show the versatility of the font. My final design was derived some of these final iterations.
~ Final Design ~
For my final poster, I deleted some more letters and made them fall off the page even more. I also continued the L and F from the top right of the page to the bottom left to show the transitional aspect of this font. This typeface was labeled a transitional typeface from old fonts to new ones. I am really happy with this poster because after many iterations, I finally achieved the hierarchy that I wanted and the color wasn’t overwhelming or random.
~ Reflection & What I Would Change~
In my final critique, with some feedback I realized I could have used the letters such as the hook of the J to guide the viewer’s eye to my important information. I could’ve also used other features of the letters in a more deliberate way. However, overall, I think my poster focuses on 1754 first then on Baskerville then the quote which is the hierarchy I was targeting.
