If the face fits (Part 1: Type Specimen Book) Lo-Res

10th May 2021Leave a comment

When it comes to decorative/ fun or “gimmicky” typefaces I am not very knowledgeable! In my work I mostly use Sans-Serif which is why I have made my specimen book “Sans heavy”! For this section of my specimen book I had to do my research and look into different typefaces that I could use for pixelated/fixed width fonts. I started by looking at Adobe fonts on Typekit. I found one called Lo-Res which gave me the most ideas for my design. It is also designed by Zuzana Licko which is interesting because she very successfully designed Mrs Eaves but this typeface in my opinion seems a far cry from that! I cannot say I am a fan of this typeface at all; in fact, I am not a fan of this category at all and I shall probably never use this typeface or any in this particular category ever again unless the brief directly states it! It did however still give me good ideas for my design…

I follow an Instagram account called “Designer humour” and it is full of funny memes relating to the design industry and stupid things clients ask or say, this typeface made me instantly think of one of those memes that I read;

“I am just sending you the Hi- res logo… It’s in Word is that OK?“

Lo-Res is a very pixelated, hard to read typeface and it lends itself well to the quote above! I decided to create the whole layout in the style of an email from a non-designer sending a designer their “high res” files!

Digital Development

I had the idea in my head of making the whole double page spread look like the screen of a computer with the emails open and for there to be an email on there from the “non-designer” with a Microsoft Word attachment which I would then link back to Lo-Res.

I firstly needed an email with a fake Word document to then edit in Photoshop. I got my boyfriend to send me a fake email with a word attachment on it so that I could use this as a base for my design.

I deleted Chris’s name and information and replaced it with a fake name. I then started designing different layouts around this. I found that using the whole screen on my layout was too much to look at. I needed to strip it down to its bare minimum. I started to delete elements down to it’s essential to see if it made the overall design better.

Once I deleted elements it did make the overall design better.. I then decided to move around what was left on my page for better hierarchy. The eye needed to flow and skim over the content better. What I ended up with was a lot of negative space with elements thoughtfully placed across the spread. I added there are 2 main focal points on the design and that is the Word attachment and the Lo-Res quote. It needs to be clear almost straight away what the pages are all about.

The Final Mockup

If the face fits (part 1: Type specimen book) Chantal

10th May 2021Leave a comment

Chantal was designed by Rian Hughes in England, other than the designer there is limited other information about the typeface so I designed the layout for the pages how I thought the typeface should be used and interpreted the typeface in my own way.

From first sight looking at Chantal it instantly made me think of a Louis Vuitton design that was used on handbags a few years back and also on some of their shop displays, I thought I could recreate a similar thing for my design. As well as reminding me of the Louis Vuitton designs it also reminded me of some Chanel bottle designs that I have seen and pinned on Pinterest, luckily Chantal is a play on words with Chanel so I chose to do a fun, gimmicky play on Chanel with Chantal!

Chantal seems to me to be a typeface that doesn’t take itself too seriously! It looks like it has a lot of fun! I really enjoyed designing these pages for Chantal, it is probably one of y favourite layouts and it is definitely a typeface I shall use in my future designs!

Digital Development

I designed and created most of my design for this using Illustrator and Photoshop. I started off by designing the left side page first. The first page was inspired by the Louis Vuitton design and I had the vision of the first page filled with pure type. I typed out my text how I wanted it (I used the words Fresh, energetic, youthful, fun and lively as this is how the typeface was described on Adobe Fonts) and I repeated the words across the page, I converted them all into shapes so that I could adjust the colours further and move elements if I needed to. Using a black background and a vivid hot pink gave the design contrast and made it look really modern and eye catching. This design is clearly going to be aimed at women, I am not sure that the typeface is aimed at Females specifically but that is how I have interpreted it.

The next stage was to design the “Chanel” play on words part of the design. I decided to draw out one of the famous Chanel No5 perfume bottles in Illustrator but change the name to “Chantal no5”, London (where the typeface was made) and Eau de Type. I really liked how it came out! I then added some effects to the bottle; I used the paint brush tool to create like bubbles of the perfume spraying out and I used part of the type and lowered the opacity to place it behind the perfume bottle to look like the bottle is filled with type. I am really pleased with how it all turned out!

I only came across one problem while creating this design (one that I was able to sort out easily). I accidentally created my Illustrator document in RGB which was good because it gave really vibrant colours but it is not suitable for print; my InDesign document was set to “Print” which meant that when I imported the Illustrator document over to InDesign it came out really dull. I changed the settings over and it soon fixed itself and the colours came out looking lovely again!

When I had created the pages in Illustrator I then exported them and imported them into InDesign to create the final layout. I added the text in white on the right hand side which gives information about the type and the designer.

Design Development

The Final design

The Final Mockup

If the face fits (Part 1: Type specimen book) Lust

7th May 2021Leave a comment

Script Typeface called “Lust”

Lust was designed by Neil Summerour in the USA. There is limited information on this typeface other than letting the look and name of it do the talking!

The typeface is very modern and looks very feminine to me, just like its name though it manages to lure you in with its swirls and curls and fancy serifs. I wanted to design around “lust” and my first thoughts were of a seductive image or an intimate couple. To help give me a better idea I searched Pexels.com for any relevant images I could use on my layout. I actually searched for the image I used on my final piece in my work time on my work laptop.. the image download was called “Erotic shower” (**shocked face!! – just hope my workplace does not check internet history!!) LOL!

The original “Lust” (Erotica shower.. **embarrased face!) photograph! Downloaded from Pexels.com courtesy of Tim Samuel

This design surprisingly was the most developed piece I have done; I seemed to trial many versions of this before I got to the final piece! The piece was originally in Black and White until I realised it looked very cold considering it should be about love and lust and all things warm and fuzzy! – I took the original photograph and put a reddy- pink filter on it and that improved it greatly!

I also had the idea again to use a phrase or quote instead of “The Quick Brown Fox….” for some reason when I see this image and read “Lust” it reminds me of a Lana Del Rey song called Burning Desire, I used the chorus from that song in my early development to replace “The Quick Brown Fox” but it looked too busy, eventually I settled on having it in small inside the photograph. It seems like a little thought bubble or moment between the 2 people now with the location I have put it. It adds just another little bit of interest to the piece.

Digital Design Development

The Final design

The Final Mockup

If the face fits (Part 1: Type specimen book) Mrs Eaves

6th May 2021Leave a comment

The last Serif typeface I chose was Mrs Eaves. I like the story behind this typeface and it also ties in nicely with Baskerville.

Mrs Eaves was designed in 2006 by Zuzana Licko in 1996. It is a variant of Baskerville. Baskerville is known for being absolutely perfect, stark and sometimes hard to read and Licko went out to create a version that was softer and more feminine in approach.

Mrs Eaves was named after Sarah Eaves; Baskervilles live in housekeeper who would later become his mistress and eventual wife. It was the story that drew me in to this typeface.. Sarah Eaves was John Baskervilles live in house keeper whose husband went on to leave her and her 5 children. Sarah in time became Baskervilles creative assistant and mistress and then when Sarah’s estranged husband died, they were married. Sarah Eaves was very much the woman forgotten in typography.

I wanted to bring an element of this story into the design; again, similar to Baskerville I had the idea to create a book design for the layout and tell the story of Mrs Eaves but then I saw that Mrs Eaves has the most beautiful ligatures and I wanted to do something with this. At college when I was 17 we had a project (similarly worded to this exercise actually!) called “create a type-FACE” or something similar where I had to create an actual face out of typefaces. I thought about creating a similar thing on my layout using just ligatures. I had the idea of a very feminine pattern and then possibly repeat printing it across the page. What I ended up with though was slightly different; I am a little bit disappointed because this is one of my least favourites looking back on it and it seemed to have so much more potential at the beginning but time was very much against me in this exercise.

I created a very similar layout to Baskerville as the 2 are related back to each other and then started messing around with the ligatures to make a feminine looking pattern. The pattern I created looks a bit like a Celtic cross, it reminds me of something that would appear in a stained glass window. It has a traditional yet modern feel to it. I tried to turn the opacity down on the design as I still think it looks a bit harsh but tuning it down just made it disappear into the backdrop.

Digital Development

The final layout

The final mockup

If the face fits(Part 1: Type Specimen book) Univers

6th May 2021Leave a comment

Another typeface I chose for my Sans-Serif collection was Univers. I have already used Helvetica and Akzidenz Grotesk and this is the third typeface that relates to all those; they are all based upon Akzidenz Grotesk. Univers again played a crucial role in Swiss style. I did worry that by doing all three of these typefaces that they would be too similar as they are often mistaken for each other but if I am creating a specimen book for my own personal use I would use all 3 of the typefaces in my work.

I tried to make the design for this slightly different to the others that I completed to date; Univers referenced the periodic table and Adrian Frutiger took a different approach to designing it then anyone ever had before. He wanted a table system that showed the different typeface weights and variations as numbers instead of names. Frutiger has since used this method in more of his type designs.

55 was crucial in the design of Univers; how Frutiger designed the whole typeface was to design “55 Roman” first and then base the other variations and weights around that. I decided to use this as the main design in my typeface book. I tried to be more experimental with this layout, using the 55 as part of the negative space in my design. I did want to bring in the periodic table element but struggled to keep it looking clean and simplistic. In the end I used blocks of colour to represent the periodic table influence on the typeface and I think this worked well.