103:Week 3 Tasks- Type & Wordmarks

This week we focussed more on Type and what it can do to communicate as effectively as possible.

To help understand type in its most fundamental form we were asked to draw our own type anatomy poster, using our own name as the sample text. I started out with a basic drawing of what I wanted mine to look like:

 

 

 

 

From there I used my ipad and the app ‘procreate’ to bring the poster to life:

I used a lot of colour in my design to make it interesting and eye-catching. I dashed the lines to show the height of the letters to sort of soften the image and make it easier on the eyes. However I think the values of some of the colours could go down slightly to make the image easier to read.

 


Our next task was to create 6 wordplays, these are my original sketches.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I then recreated some of them in figma;

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


This week we were asked to create a short list of typefaces we felt fit our brand and personality which could be used to create our wordmarks.

  • Roboto
  • Poppins
  • Quicksand
  • Josefin Sans
  • ABeeZee
  • Manrope
  • Baloo 2
  • Righteous
  • Russo One
  • Paytone One
  • Viga
  • Bungee

These are my favourite fonts that I’ve found, some of which I will use in the development of my brand. The first 6 fonts in the list are fairly simple, sans serif fonts. The each have a lot of roundness to their letters which is something I was looking for as my name has a lot of roundness in its letters and I wanted to emphasise that with my fonts. A font I choose from this part of the list would more likely become a secondary font throughout my brand, for main bodies of text.

The remaining fonts are more bold and display type fonts I could imagine being used for my wordmark. I enjoy the statement a bold and more defined shape a font has for my brand. Some of these fonts ‘paytone one’ and ‘viga’ emphasise the roundness of my letters like the others but in a more obvious playful way. Some other fonts such as ‘Russo One’ and ‘Bungee’ emphasise a more square and angular shape to my name which I think could provide a good contrast look pretty interesting which is something I would like my brand to represent- something playful and interesting.


Helvetica- Documentary

I watched the Helvetica documentary last term but there are parts of that documentary I can understand more or think of differently, the more i’ve learned.

Helvetica rose to popularity partly due to it being produced in Switzerland at the perfect time. ‘The Swiss Style’ is known for its focus on efficiency and function in design, Helvetica was the perfect typeface for this movement. As the movement spread through the western world, so did Helvetica and from there it became the single most widespread font. Helvetica is used on road signs, underground train maps, bins, posters, billboards, menus, nearly everywhere for almost anything. I think this is due to the Swiss Style movement but fundamentally, I think it’s due to to how easy it is to communicate through the typeface. So easy to communicate, you wouldn’t even recognise it around you nearly everywhere.

The documentary talks about the reasons Helvetica is so popular but also the downsides to that. Some designers would say the font is basic and uninteresting- too mainstream but others would argue that those qualities are good things as the typeface isn’t important, what the typeface is saying is what is important. Helvetica allows the information to be forefront. Hence, why it is so useful for functional designs like maps and signs.

Some designers argue it is still so widespread today is because it cannot be improved upon, I don’t think that’s necessarily true as nearly anything can be improved. I think the concept of Helvetica being improved depends on the goal. If the goal is to create a more interesting font, because of Helvetica’s basic anatomy, small changes to it could end in a more out of the box way, there’s a lot you can add to it. If the goal is to create an even more simplistic design you can start to strip away from the typeface. Are there particular parts of the anatomy that you could change or take away entirely while still being legible? I think with very small changes you could improve on this.

One part of the documentary that stood out to me was that Helvetica is used in corporate logos, seeing as Helvetica was born in the Swiss style which is heavy on democracy in design the fact that it is being used in a corporate branding is interesting to me. It’s something that makes sense as Helvetica has a relatability and a ‘cutting to the chase’ tone which could be used to the advantage of advertisers make their brand seem simple, no fancy lettering, no unnecessary add-ons which appeal to a lot of consumers.

Overall I enjoyed the documentary as it is fun to see designers explaining what they do, the projects their involved in and what this simple font represents. I think it says alot about how society views design and I think in time design will probably turn to fighting against this as some designers already hate what Helvetica stands for.

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