Journal Assignment #5: Project 4 research

I'm thinking I want to design a typeface not necessarily to put in my portfolio as a project, but to present my projects in my portfolio. I usually tend to gravitate towards slab serifs when it comes to needing a display face so it's probably a good idea not design just another slab serif. I found some really nice display and script fonts and hopefully that's a direction I can follow in.

 

Rue Display is particularly nice. I enjoy the arched characteristics of the font, it gives it personality and its fun.

Candy Script is another fun one. I really like the swashes. They are quirky and have a big personality. I think it would be fun and challenging to do something like this.

Here's a good in-between of a script and a slab serif. I wanted to put it in here just as another option of where I can go with this. 

Beppo is really big and bubbly (in personality). It definitely caught my attention right away. I love the thickness of the letters yet the contrasted thinness of the script that connects them. Also, that little indent they played with on the top of the letters is definitely something different. I want my typeface to have a defining feature like that.

This picture below is just some inspiration when I'm designing... and a reminder to sketch first, digitalize later.

Darby display has really nice slanted/rounded serifs that caught my attention. I also am a fan of the e.

Miss Kitty Delux is a little girly for me but I thought the designer had something good going on when she was designing this. The uppercase A is particularly nice and I love the balls at the ends of some of the letters. I also enjoy the fact that everything is capitalized except for the i.

 

I added BD Hitbit into my research just because I really lot the way they made all the counters and negative space of the letters.

Gaisma is very organic looking and I enjoy that. I would probably make my face a little bolder than this one but I like its simplicity and its personality.

 

Pepita script is particularly nice. I love the different swashes you can turn on; the t is especially beautiful. I love its classic advertising look that was redefined in a modern way.

Week 4: Digital Journal Assignment - Customized Lettering

I really enjoy this logo. Although I can't exactly find the correct font for the logo it seems to go along well with some brush fonts that I found on MyFonts. From what I can tell, the designer probably disconnected the bowl of the e to go along with the curved steam coming out of the coffee cup, also forming the F's of the word coffee. They also probably emphasized the curve in the C more than the original typeface.


*** update*** I may have actually found the font - barrista on myfonts

This is a logo for Du Life looks like a modified Geometric font like Bauhaus or Avenir because there is no varying width and the bowl of the d is completely geometric. In my opinion they added another modified letter to make the tail of the d (or the letter u) and rounded all the corners to give it a more friendly feel.

Here is another typeface that received some help from alteration. This typeface seems to be a Neo-Grotesque font because it has little variation and the D kind of looks like it has a well defined coutner. If I had to guess, this logo kind of looks like Antique Olive except in a black face because of the horizontal line at the top of the A and the very pointy counter inside the A pointing to the top. They may have added some extra weight to the line width and obviously they added what looks like an extra road lane, to the left side of the A.

I also really like this logo. Its another geometric font like Avante Garde Gothic because of the little variation and the roundness of the o. The font was altered by rounding the connected horizontals and verticals and then pointing the different acenders, descenders, and horizontal lines.

Fictional Characters

Assignment #3: Giambattista Bodoni

Giambattista Bodoni created the typeface Bodoni in 1798, following the creation of baskerville. It is classified as a Didone Modern meaning it has high contrast, unbraketed hairline serifs, vertical axis, horizontal stress, and small aperture (ilovetypography).

This picture shows in detail, the exact characteristics of Bodoni

Didone typefaces are used for a plethora of things. Their "attitude" is very precise, in control, and unhurried. Bodoni can definitely be used as a call to attention because its horizontal features lead the eye up and down instead of side to side. Bodoni is great for book covers because its elegant features invite the holder to read more (ilovetypography).

 

Not only that, but Bodoni has a nice size family which goes far in terms of design.

Bodoni is also used often in magazines. For example, Vignelli Associates uses Bodoni because he "like[s] design to be semantically correct, syntactically consistent, and pragmatically understandable. [He] like[s] it to be visually powerful, intellectually elegant, and above all timeless" - Massimo Vignelli. Bodoni is timeless, intellectual, elegant, and a very powerful typeface. It is systematically designed, very unlike the humanist letters. When used correctly, Bodoni looks like it should be there, it brings sophistication and draws the eye around the page.

Another interesting point about Bodoni is its style corresponds to the rational period of Enlightenment between the 1700 and 1900s (norah). This explains why Bodoni comes off as mechanical and not hand drawn because thinking rationally means looking to the future of things, not looking in the past.

This is a page from a magazine featuring Bodoni. I visually

enjoy the design int he background using the typface.

Bodoni the designer created over 140 roman fonts and over 115 script fonts meaning that he was really good at what he did. This corresponds to how well made Bodoni is as a whole typeface. Because it is so contrasted, it is one of the hardest fonts to recreate or revive. Bodoni did an excellent job at keeping the face cohesive and beautiful throughout the entire alphabet (illuminating letters).

This is the logo used for Vignelli Magazine.

This is an interesting take on designing with the typeface. All letters are \Bodoni, but they form this very ugly man woman.

Journal Assignment #2 Morris Fuller Benton (Franklin Gothic)

Franklin Gothic was designed by Morris Fuller Benton in 1902 for American Type Founders, although not released till 1905. Franklin Gothic was created as a realist san serif, or in the new-grotesque category meaning they stemmed from the grotesque movement but were considered slightly more elegant with more variation in width (www.bruceclay.com/design/type.htm).

Franklin Gothic was designed to be thicker and more contrasting on paper than it's predecessor News Gothic, also created by Benton (gdpsu.typepad.com). In the picture to the right, News Gothic is displayed as a much stiffer lightweight font and it is easy to see why Franklin Gothic was the more aesthetic choice.



Franklin Gothic differs from other neo-grotesque faces with its characteristic letters like the lower case g and i and the uppercase Q (people.artcenter.edu/~ljohnson1/specimen.pdf). The g is double story with a distinctive ear that gets wider off the counter. The tail of the g is elegant in its varying weight. The Q shows a vertical axis yet is dynamic in its thinning weight towards the cap height and baseline.

Franklin Gothic was "updated" in 1980 by ITC, International Typeface Corporation. They created medium, book, demi, and heavy faces which basically brought this face back to life after fifty years (www.itcfonts.com/Ulc/4112/_IL_FranklinGothic.htm). It's a face that was made to grab attention in newspapers and headings and after it was revived it was used for multiple mediums of design; but this font is still used to grab attention. It's lighter book version is well made for certain types of books and magazines.

 here is a billboard using Franklin Gothic to catch attention by being bold yet extremely legible

 This is a book cover where the font is also used to grab attention

This is a magazine ad where the face is used more in a aesthetic sort of way. To me it looks like the vibrations you hear after a tennis ball has been hit really hard. I like the effect.

Besides Franklin Gothic, Benton designed about 200 other typefaces. These included  "Century roman (with Theodor Low de Vinne, 1885), Mariage (1901), Alternate Gothic (1903), Franklin Gothic (1903–12), Cheltenham® (1904), Clearface® (1907), News Gothic™ (1908), Bodoni (1909), Cloister Oldstyle (1913), Souvenir® (1914), Garamond® (with T. M. Cleveland, 1914), Goudy™ bold, 1916, Century Schoolbook™ (1919), Civilité (1922), Broadway™ (1928), Bulmer™ (1928), Bank Gothic (1930), Stymie (with S. Hess and G. Powell, 1931), American Text (1932)" (www.linotype.com/682/morrisfullerbenton.html)

Obviously Benton was an amazing type designer and influenced much of the history of typography.

Fictional Characters