Week 02 – Wordmarks & Typography

History Of Typography

Pictograms & Iconography

Typography and writing was never initially the main form of communication for man-kind other than using our voices to communicate with each other through various languages and sounds. Communication can be found dating back well over 5000 years when we began to communicate through cave paintings, markings and stone carvings which originated from Ancient Mesopotamia where they communicated with each other through a series of basic pictograms, carvings and drawings.^[1]

This began to become adopted around the world and can be found in Ancient Egyptian times where they used to communicate through what we know as “hieroglyphs”, the word hieroglyph is the Greek term form “sacred carving” which is a good representation of Ancient Egypt as they were extremely sacred and spiritual people – this is also where the term “glyph” derives from in modern typography. Hieroglyphs were different from the style of pictograms the Ancient Mesopotamia people used as they were more graphic and had a more symbolic aesthetic to them – man-kind has learnt a lot about history through these ancient markings and drawings that our previous ancestors left for us.^[1]

After further development of pictograms and iconography humans began to develop writing and scriptures, this dates back to the Roman Empire and can be seen in there scriptures and drawings in addition to being seen in a number of different Chinese scriptures dating back to the same time period.^[1]

The Guttenberg Press & Moveable Type

Before the invention of printing and mass-production came about everything was initially done by hand, whether that be writings and scriptures or drawings and stone carvings, this was extremely expensive due to the amount of time it took to complete these tasks. During the industrial revolution when mass-production and factory work was in full swing, Johannes Gutenberg invented the Gutenberg Press which was a series of moveable metal-block letterforms making up a typeface that could be printed, this was huge due to the increased demand for advertising and the amount of competition within the industry as a whole.^[2]

The first book to ever be printed and mass-produced was the Gutenberg Bible, this was the first ever printed edition of the bible that was created with Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press, the Chinese did something similar when they got hold of the technology and produced their own bible preaching Buddhism and Buddhist principles. The moveable type technology initially began in Europe before it began to spread like wildfire across the world reaching Asia, Australia, UK and the USA – this technology pathed the way for the technology that we have today.^[1]

Modern Typography

Typography was rapidly developed after the invention of the Gutenberg Press and Moveable Type, the invention brought the idea of different style typefaces in order to convey the message and communicate their point in a better way. The competition between businesses trying to get the publics attention and try and entice them into buying a product made it extremely difficult for companies to stand out, this was when bigger and bolder typefaces were created in order to solve this problem and stand out from the competition.

One of the most renowned design schools in the world, The Bauhaus School of Design, is a topic we had looked at in our previous modules last semester. El Lizzitsky who is internationally recognised for being one of the founding fathers and innovators of modern typography said “Typographical design should perform optically what the speaker creates through voice and gesture of his thoughts.”, this quote speaks volume to what typography actually is as a form of communication.

“Typographical design should perform optically what the speaker creates through voice and gesture of his thoughts.”

– El Lizzitsky

El is stating that typography is more than just letters on a page or a screen and the typeface we choose is conveying more than just what the words are saying, the typeface we choose can help elaborate and expand on what we are trying to communicate or it can, on the contrary, juxtapose what we are trying to communicate. A great example of this would be if we are trying to communicate a feeling or emotion like love for example, choosing a bold, grunge-style display typeface would not suit what we are trying to communicate where as using a delicate script typeface or elegant serif typeface may convey the message a lot better.

Typography has been massively developed over the years and with the birth of the internet and electronic devices we are starting to see typography on screens more than we do in day-to-day life. As we are all spending more and more time on our devices and behind screens the typography we now have access to in comparison to when printing was first introduced is mind-blowing, we now have access to millions of different digital typefaces that all have their own unique, individual characteristics.

Typography Fundamentals

Anatomy Of Typography

There are multiple different parts that make up the letterforms that we know as typography, typefaces and fonts, these can be from specific lines that the typeface are limited to like the baseline, ascender, descender and cap-height or certain elements that help build the characteristics of the typeface like the aperture, counter, shoulder, tail, stem and many others.

I will go into a bit more detail into what each of these are below, I have also included an image as a quick reference for refer back to at a later date.

Aperture, Counter & Eye

Aperture – The aperture is the part of the letterform that is not fully enclosed, this is commonly seen on letters like ‘a’, ‘c’ and ‘e’.^[3]

Counter – The counter is the part of the letterform that is fully enclosed, this is usually the easiest to spot on the letter ‘o’ where the negative space in the centre would be the counter of the letterform – this is not to be confused with the eye of a letterform.^[3]

Eye – The eye is typically referred to as the enclosed negative space in the letter ‘e’, after analysing the differences I would say that the counter would often be rounder and more circular in shape whereas the eye would be more elliptical or have a sharp edge to it like in the letter ‘e’.^[3]

Baseline, X-Height, Cap Height, Ascender & Descender

Baseline – The baseline is possibly the easier attribute to spot on typography as it is the line that all letterforms stand on, some letters will extend slightly below this line depending on the typeface and its characteristics.^[3]

X-Height – The x-height is another easy attribute to pick out on typography, this is often referred to as the height of the lowercase ‘x’ and forms the height boundary for the lowercase letterforms.^[3]

Cap Height – The cap height is often referred to as the height of that capital letters or uppercase letterforms and is often the tallest part of the typefaces anatomy.^[3]

Ascender – The ascender is referred to as the stem that extends above the x-height, this is commonly seen in letterforms like ‘l’ and ‘h’ where the stem goes beyond the boundaries of the x-height. On some typefaces the ascender line can extended beyond the cap height making it the tallest part of the typeface.^[3]

Descender – The descender is referred to as the stem or tail that extends below the x-height, this is commonly seen in letterforms like ‘p’ and ‘q’ where the stem extends below the baseline.^[3]

Ligatures, Loop, Link & Swash

Ligatures – Ligatures are often referred to as the combination between two or more letterforms, these glyphs or letterforms are usually created for legibility and readability purposes when letterforms overlap when they’re displayed closer together. This is commonly seen in letter combinations like ‘fi’ and ‘ff’.^[3]

Loop – The loop is often referred to as the stroke that loops back on itself, this is usually a decorative elements in more elegant typefaces and in letterforms like a double-story ‘g’.^[4]

Link – The link is the part of the letterform that connects the body of the letter to the loop of the letter, this is usually seen in letterforms like a double-story ‘g’.^[4]

Swash – A swash is usually referred to as a decorative element within more decorative typefaces like script and hand-lettering typefaces. The can often be found in display typography where the typeface is more dramatic and creative.^[4]

Uppercase, Lowercase & Small Caps

Uppercase – The uppercase letterform is often referred to as a capital letter within a typeface.

Lowercase – The lowercase is often referred to as the lowercase letterforms within a typeface.

Small Caps – Small caps are a capital letter or uppercase letter that is reduced in size, this is often reduced to the size of the x-height but the characteristics are the same as the uppercase letterform.^[3]

Shoulder, Arm, Leg, & Spine

Shoulder – The shoulder is the curved part of the letterform that extends from the stems of the letter, this is most noticeable in letterforms like ‘n’ and ‘m’ where the shoulder makes up the bridge between the vertical strokes of the letter.^[3]

Arm – The arm is the stroke that extends upwards from the stem, this is most noticeable on letterforms like ‘k’ and ‘v’ where the stroke is extending upwards on a diagonal.^[4]

Leg – The leg is the stroke that extends downwards from the stem of the letterform, this is most noticeable on letters like ‘k’ where the stroke is extending downwards on a diagonal – hence the name “kicking-k” from primary school.^[4]

Spine – The spine is the main curved shape of a letterform and is often seen in letters like ‘s’ and ‘c’ where the main part of the letter is curved as opposed to having a straight stem.^[3]

Stem, Stroke, Finial, Terminal, Dot, Bowl, Cross Bar & Serif

Stem – The stem is often referred to as the main straight line that makes up the body of the letterform, this can be seen in a lot of capital letters and other letterforms like ‘l’, ‘b’ and ‘p’.^[3]

Stroke – The stroke is referred to as the extra lines that make up the rest of the letterform, these often extend from the stem of the letterform.^[3]

Finial – The finial is usually associated with the curved end of a letterform that doesn’t have serifs, this is often most noticeable on letterforms like the lowercase ‘e’.^[3]

Terminal – The terminal is often associated with the end of a letterform but is often more circular in appearance, this can often be seen in letterforms like the lowercase ‘a’ where the end of the hat on the letter is more circular in appearance.^[3]

Dot – The dot is commonly referred to as the dot that we see in letterforms like ‘i’ and ‘j’.^[3]

Bowl – The bowl is the curved part of the letterform that extends from the stem of the letter, this can often be seen in letterforms like ‘p’, ‘b’ and ‘q’.^[3]

Cross Bar/Bar – The cross bar or bar is often associated with the horizontal stroke of a letterform, this is most noticeable in letterforms like the uppercase ‘A’.^[3]

Serif – A serif is an addition feature that is added to the end of each stem and stroke of the letterform and is often associated with more traditional typefaces.^[3]

Kerning, Tracking, Leading & Line Height

Kerning – Kerning is the adjustment of the space between each letterform to make it tighter or looser, while it is common for designers to manually adjust the kerning on typography some design software programs have built-in functions that automatically adjust the kerning of typography, this can either be metric kerning or optical kerning. Metric kerning is the initial kerning values that they typeface designer intended for that specific typeface, optical kerning is the design software making a judgement on the letterforms and automatically adjusting the space between each letter accordingly.^[5]

Tracking – Tracking is the adjustment of the space between all the letterforms in a word or sentence to make the tighter or looser, this is commonly used on typography that is all capital letters or small caps in order to improve the legibility^[5] – this can be seen in the Material Design System by Google where they have increased the button text tracking amount due to the typography being in all capitals.

Leading – Leading, commonly referred to as line height or line spacing, is the adjustment to the space between each sentence or line in a paragraph. Some typefaces might need more leading than others due to having more decorative or ornate elements,^[5] an example of this would be comparing a sans-serif typeface like Futura to a more ornate and decorative blackletter style typeface like Lordish.

Alignment – Aligning typography is extremely important, text be can aligned in a variety of ways like justified left, justified right, centred and justified which would make each line extend the full with of the bounding box. It’s common to see body copy and readable content justified to the left as, in western culture, we read from left to right, this could change if the text is going to be displayed in far-east countries like China where they read from right to left.^[5]

Typography Classifications

There are a number of different typefaces and type classifications to choose from nowadays, especially with the increased demand for web fonts and digital typefaces. Each typeface has its own positives and negatives, and each typeface has its own characteristics giving it its own individual personality which makes our options for choosing typefaces for branding and logo design almost limitless.

I am going to take a look into a few different type classifications below and demonstrate what each of them would look like in terms of overall style and appearance.

Serif

Serif typefaces are possibly one of the most traditional styles of typography and were commonly used in the early days of printing and typographical advertising. The most recognisable serif typeface is probably the Times New Roman typeface that was designed for the Time Newspaper, the serifs on the typeface massively improved the legibility and readability of the typeface when it was printed at smaller sizes, this allowed the newspaper to fit more content onto a single page and maximise their coverage.

I have included an example of some serif typefaces below as a quick reference.

Sans-Serif

With the rise of the internet and digital devices the demand for sans-serif typefaces has never been bigger, as they are more geometric and “blocky’ in appearance in comparison to serif typefaces this makes them a lot easier to read on a digital screen as opposed to a serif typeface where the serifs may appear blurry due to pixelation. Sans-serif typefaces hit the mainstream around the 1960’s when the International Typographic Style and Swiss Design movement was in full swing with typefaces like Helvetica becoming one of the most recognisable typefaces to date.

I have included an example of some sans-serif typefaces below as a quick reference.

Slab Serif

Slab serif typefaces can be seen dating back to the early days of printing and the industrial revolution where they were primarily used for advertising as their bold, “blocky’ appearance helped them stand out from the other adverts they were competing with. Slab serif typefaces are commonly associated with the variety style typography we see in modern society, this could be in films or tv, on clothing items or even on artwork and posters.

I have included an example of some slab serif typefaces below as a quick reference.

Blackletter

Blackletter typefaces are usually extremely ornate with a number of different decorative elements to them, we often associate blackletter typefaces as being very gothic in style. This type classification is usually only good for titles and headings as opposed to body copy and will probably lose its definition when reduced to a smaller size. Blackletter typefaces are often associated with the Display typeface classification that I will be looking into next.

I have included an example of some blackletter typefaces below as a quick reference.

Script & Handwriting

Script or handwriting style typefaces are usually only used for decorative purposes or creating some for of realism or playfulness when it comes to designing with this style of type classification. These typefaces often replicate and mirror real-life handwriting styles and are often replicas or actual handwriting styles of the designer who actually designed the typeface. I personally love script and handwriting typefaces as I feel like they add more depth and emotion to the design if they are used correctly – one of my favourite handwriting typefaces is Asem Kandis.

I have included an example of some script and handwriting typefaces below as a quick reference.

Display

Display typefaces are commonly referred to as anything that isn’t a sans-serif, serif, slab serif or any other primary typographic classification, typeface styles like blackletter, script and handwritten are all display typefaces. This type classification is usually extremely decorative and creative in one way or another and they are intended to be used as titles and headings, hence the name display typefaces, they’re meant to capture the viewers attention from the get go.

I have included an example of some display typefaces below as a quick reference.

Task – Analyse The Anatomy Of A Typeface

During our lecture we were tasked with analysing the anatomy of a typeface to help us build our skills on identifying specific features of typography. We were asked to type our name and identify the anatomy of each letter to find out which characteristics the typeface had. I found this task really interesting as I have never really explored typography in this way before and there was a lot of features within the typeface that I would have never originally noticed, this gave me a greater understanding on how typography is designed and how it can create emotion through different characteristics.

I have included a screenshot of my work below to demonstrate the different aspects of the typeface I had chosen.

Typography For Brand Identity

Case Study 01 – “Coca-Cola”

Coca-Cola Logo

I wanted to briefly look into some existing logo designs to see how they have used typography to fit their brands personality, brand values and their niche or product. I started to look into Coca-Cola to see how they have used typography for their logo and at first glance I thought that the way they have designed this display typeface almost replicates the image of liquid which shares similarities with their product as coca-cola is a drink, the use of custom typography is extremely ornate and gives of the image of being classy but also fun at the same time. Considering their brand colours I instantly associated the logo with Christmas due to the fact that I remember seeing their adverts at Christmas time when I was a kid.

Case Study 02 – “Nike”

Nike Logo

At first glance of the Nike logo I noticed that the typography they have used is slanted slightly which means they have used an italic or oblique typeface or manual altered a regular or bold typeface, this gave me the sense of movement or direction within the logo which aligns with the niche Nike are in and what products they sell – this is active-wear and sports clothing for anyone living under a rock. This sense of direction aligns with their brand values too as they are always expanding their range of products and creating for the future, expanding on the idea of the future, the logo has a futuristic aesthetic to it through its simplicity and geometric references, this futuristic characteristic aligns with Nike’s brand values as they believe in sustainability and build for a better future.

How To Choose The Right Typeface

A famous quote by Steven Heller is “Typefaces are to the written word what dialects are to different languages, he is basically saying that each typeface has its own dialect and can portray a specific meaning through its own personality and characteristics. This make typography extremely powerful as you can extend the message and the meaning behind it even further than just the actual words themselves.

“Typefaces are to the written word what dialects are to different languages.”

– Steven Heller

Similarly, Paula Scher said “Words have meaning. Type has spirit. The combination is spectacular.” where she went on to describe typography and different typographic styles as being extremely powerful or “spectacular” in her words. The combination between literal words and the personality of a typeface can be an extremely useful tool when trying to communicate and convey a message to the audience.

“Words have meaning. Type has spirit. The combination is spectacular.”

– Paula Scher

Choosing the right typeface is possibly the hardest part when it comes to designing a word mark logo for a brand due to the simple fact that there are millions of different typefaces to choose from so it is extremely important to narrow down your options and be picky with what you are looking f0r. Since each typeface has its own personality it is important to consider your brands personality and make sure both of these align in one way or another, certain typefaces have a certain style or “vibe” to them which makes them suitable for certain brands and industries for example, Didot may be associated with more sophisticated brands like a wedding photographer or law firm, Comic Sans may be associated with more playful brands like children’s toys and playground signs, and Futura may be associated with more formal or modern brands due to its geometric appearance.^[6] My point is that each typeface tells its own story through its own personality and pairing that with your brand values and brand personality is key, just like how Nike have used an oblique/italic typeface to portray the image of movement which aligns with their brand as they are a sports apparel brand.

Creative Typography

Custom Typography

Custom typography is possible one of the most commonly used typographic styles when it comes to logo design and brand identity, this is due to how creative you can get with your logo design by manipulating typography to suit the personality of your brand. The most recognisable brands that have done this are companies like Coca-Cola, Vans, Ray-Bans, Subway and Walt Disney – as well as thousands of other companies. These logos make it easy for brands to define their own visual identity and establish themselves in such a competitive world.

Another benefit of creating custom typography for a brand is that you can build the typeface around the brands personality, for example if the brand is a men’s hair and facial hair product and they want to target big, hairy style biker dudes then they may want a typeface that is quite graphic and playful similar to the style of Roger King where it has that graffiti style element to it.

I have included some example of logos that have used custom typography to help them define a unique brand identity.

Custom Wordmark Example

Combining Typography & Images

One trend that I have noticed recently while I’ve been scrolling through social media platforms like Instagram, Dribbble and Pinterest is a lot of designers at utilising the white-space in typography and combining that with illustrations of an object that relates to the word, I found this idea really creative and wanted to research into it slightly incase I could go down this path when it comes to designing my own word-mark logo for my bank brand project.

I have included some examples below to illustrate this style of custom typography and how they have used the white-space with illustrations to create an interesting word-mark.