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| Layout for the crit |
I left some research images on my screen, descriptions of the two different rationales and some questions for people to answer. This allowed me to focus the responses onto the areas I needed the most opinions on, so I could then develop in the most appropriate direction.
Rationale 1 or 2?
The majority of the feedback showed a preference to rationale 1 as it would lead to the creation of a more interesting typeface design.
The word ‘unorthodox’ would be best illustrated by going against what people expect from an ordinary typeface. The ordinary needs to be changed.
Rationale 1 would allow for much more experimentation with the idea of common features in a typeface being manipulated. The high contrast could make it bold and make it appropriate as a typeface for posters and important adverts etc.
The application of the typeface from rationale 2 could be made appropriate for political posters etc. This would give a lot more purpose to the design and not make it only decorative with no real application in mind.
Which typeface to manipulate?
It was suggested that Bodoni could be used as it has thin, unbracketed serifs. The typeface would be a good starting point for the replacement of these to the slab-serifs. This will show a very visible contrast.
Univers was another typeface that was suggested to use as a starting point because it is fairly plain and simple. It was suggested that one common characteristic should be changed to represent the word 'unorthodox'.
Baskerville is another good option to manipulate as it is a very traditional typeface and with 'unorthodox' meaning to go against tradition, changing this would work very effectively. The characteristic of it being soft but strong, is something I would like to manipulate. The legibility is a characteristic I would want to keep, but I would probably look at ways of making it less soft and more fitting to the chosen adjective. To achieve this, I would remove the majority of the embellishments and manipulate the serifs in a way to break the tradition that they represent.
Which element to manipulate?
The contrast in line weight would be an effective element to manipulate as a lot of typefaces have this as the consistent feature, or do not allow it to be too dramatic. Bodoni has high contrast line weights, but it is on multiple lines. I could look at manipulating only one line in each letter. This would go against the common rules of typeface design, representing the chosen adjective.
The feedback focused on the idea of changing only one original characteristic of an existing typeface as a way of making breaking the 'common' much clearer.
Another idea to consider is the manipulation of only a handful of letters in the alphabet, so that it is not a traditional typeface which would be consistently designed throughout. This could work well, but it would have to be experimented with because it could easily look messy and not very thought out. To make it work, the changes would have to be fairly subtle.
The most extreme was or illustrating the word 'unorthodox' was the idea of presenting the letters upside down. This would fit the concept of breaking the rules and could be effective as I am concentrating on creating a display font that needs to make fairly bold and influential statements.
Serif or sans-serif typeface?
The majority of the people that gave me feedback were of the opinion that a serif typeface could be manipulated to become a sans-serif typeface which could make bold and interesting letterforms. This would illustration the 'breaking of tradition' and make the typeface powerful and bold.
A serif typeface could be used, but the traditional presentation of serifs would need to be manipulated to break the traditional placement of them.
My thoughts:
To continue with the development of this typeface design I will focus on the idea of illustrating the adjective through the manipulation of one characteristic of a traditional typeface.
I will try out a handful of different options so that I can then get feedback on which idea illustrates the word most effectively and would work best as a typeface concept.
I will then need to arrange the letters into common words, so I can conform that all of the letters work well together in any order. Kerning would have to be experimented with and displayed, so it is clear how the typeface would appear in different contexts.
It would be interesting to look at the creation of ligatures between letters that are commonly placed next to each other as an option that could be offered with this typeface.
The application in which this typeface is being designed for would best suit uppercase letters, so this will be the focus of my designing for this particular brief.
It was suggested that Bodoni could be used as it has thin, unbracketed serifs. The typeface would be a good starting point for the replacement of these to the slab-serifs. This will show a very visible contrast.
Univers was another typeface that was suggested to use as a starting point because it is fairly plain and simple. It was suggested that one common characteristic should be changed to represent the word 'unorthodox'.
Baskerville is another good option to manipulate as it is a very traditional typeface and with 'unorthodox' meaning to go against tradition, changing this would work very effectively. The characteristic of it being soft but strong, is something I would like to manipulate. The legibility is a characteristic I would want to keep, but I would probably look at ways of making it less soft and more fitting to the chosen adjective. To achieve this, I would remove the majority of the embellishments and manipulate the serifs in a way to break the tradition that they represent.
Which element to manipulate?
The contrast in line weight would be an effective element to manipulate as a lot of typefaces have this as the consistent feature, or do not allow it to be too dramatic. Bodoni has high contrast line weights, but it is on multiple lines. I could look at manipulating only one line in each letter. This would go against the common rules of typeface design, representing the chosen adjective.
The feedback focused on the idea of changing only one original characteristic of an existing typeface as a way of making breaking the 'common' much clearer.
Another idea to consider is the manipulation of only a handful of letters in the alphabet, so that it is not a traditional typeface which would be consistently designed throughout. This could work well, but it would have to be experimented with because it could easily look messy and not very thought out. To make it work, the changes would have to be fairly subtle.
The most extreme was or illustrating the word 'unorthodox' was the idea of presenting the letters upside down. This would fit the concept of breaking the rules and could be effective as I am concentrating on creating a display font that needs to make fairly bold and influential statements.
Serif or sans-serif typeface?
The majority of the people that gave me feedback were of the opinion that a serif typeface could be manipulated to become a sans-serif typeface which could make bold and interesting letterforms. This would illustration the 'breaking of tradition' and make the typeface powerful and bold.
A serif typeface could be used, but the traditional presentation of serifs would need to be manipulated to break the traditional placement of them.
My thoughts:
To continue with the development of this typeface design I will focus on the idea of illustrating the adjective through the manipulation of one characteristic of a traditional typeface.
I will try out a handful of different options so that I can then get feedback on which idea illustrates the word most effectively and would work best as a typeface concept.
I will then need to arrange the letters into common words, so I can conform that all of the letters work well together in any order. Kerning would have to be experimented with and displayed, so it is clear how the typeface would appear in different contexts.
It would be interesting to look at the creation of ligatures between letters that are commonly placed next to each other as an option that could be offered with this typeface.
The application in which this typeface is being designed for would best suit uppercase letters, so this will be the focus of my designing for this particular brief.
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