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 decorative fonts. I started by looking at Adobe fonts on Typekit. I found this one called Chantal which from first sight gave me lots of idea what I could do for the design for it in my specimen book!
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!
Images from my Pinterest account
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.
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.
Following on from Univers, I chose to do another famous typeface by Adrian Frutiger.
Frutiger is a Sans-Serif and was designed to be legible at any size. It was originally commissioned by Roissy Airport in Paris, (Charles De Gaulle) when it was first built to design all the signage in the airport. The airport wanted a new directional sign system. It was going to be named “Roissy” in 1972 after its success but was then Frutiger was approached to make the typeface suitable for print and it was then named after the designer himself.
The way forward for this layout design seemed quite obvious; to base it around signage and CDG airport. The first idea I had was to make the layout look like a baggage tag or boarding pass with the barcodes and airport names etc.. taking a little bit of inspiration from my Casetify Pangram phone case… My idea was to scan some barcodes in and then create another “swiss grit” style design.
I did ask my boyfriend if he had any boarding passes kicking around from his visit to Dubai a few years back (I haven’t travelled abroad in a few years now!) and he did have one boarding pass that I managed to take a QR code from and import into my design;
I also keep a bag full of different cardboard and paper textures and barcodes and anything interesting I could potentially use in my designs; I found a relevant barcode that I could use.
I felt like I needed some images of airport signage next. I did not want to take images from the internet because they would be very low resolution and would ruin my clean, legible design. The only way I could use airport images in my work was to import a web image of a sign and then trace around it in Illustrator to produce a high quality vector image. I did this for a plane and an arrow.
After I had collected these bits I decided to just take it straight into Adobe to try and make into a layout for the typeface. As you can see from the design development, It took me several attempts to get to the final piece! I had a lot of design elements to cram onto one page and I wanted to keep it as clean and as minimal as I could so it was a case of moving elements around the page to see what worked the best. I wanted the design to flow and to not be “too busy”. I think the version I decided on works the best.
Design Development – stages to the final design!
These are all the development stages I had to go through before I reached the final design.
I wanted to carry on down a similar path for my next typeface, Akzidenz Grotesk was the next best Sans-Serif to choose. Akzidenz Grotesk’s history goes back further than Helvetica’s but despite this, they are still closely related. Akzidenz Grotesk was the inspiration behind the design of Helvetica.
Akzidenz Grotesk was known as the “jobbing” typeface; what this means is that it was heavily used in trade printing, advertising and forms that were made at the time. The typeface was designed to be seen from a distance. “Akzidenz” comes from the German language and means trade printing for an occasion or event. The latin term refers to it as “that which happens, a casual event, a chance”. I liked this saying and used it further in my design (I will come to that later!)
Keeping in mind that Akzidenz Grotesk was used predominantly in advertising and posters I decided to base my design around this, researching further I also found that Josef Muller Brockmann heavily used Akzidenz Grotesk in his poster designs.
Josef Muller Brockmann
Brockmann was a Swiss Graphic Designer but also the pioneer of the International Typographic Style which tied in brilliantly with this typeface. He was recognised for his clean use of typography, shapes and colours in his designs. His work mainly consisted of poster design. I bought a book about him and studied his posters to see how I could get a similar style for my own design. I also did some in depth research on Pinterest again to get some ideas and a feel for his style.
I found an image on Pinterest which caught my attention and gave me an idea for my design:
Composition 5 by Eduardo Seco
I liked the way the colours pop and contrast each other and the different styles/weights and sizes of the text also work together to create contrast. I felt I could create something like this using Akzidenz Grotesk, the Bauhaus colours and make it look like “trade printing or advertising with the modern influence of “Swiss Grit”.
I wanted to create the poster layout for my type specimen pages but just didn’t know how to do it…yet.
Using the image from Pinterest to vaguely copy, I knew I had to layer up and collage different posters to recreate that torn and ripped look. I decided to create a poster with a made up event (A typography exhibition in honour of Josef Muller Brockmann) then layer up behind it contrasting colours and different type relating to Akzidenz Grotesk. The only implication was that I wanted to actually create my poster on a real wall and photograph it and then import it into Photoshop to do any adjustments etc.. The issue was where would I find an urban wall when I live in the country? and how would I even get out to photograph one during lockdown?.. I then looked no further than home because we are currently renovating our house and the upstairs second bedroom wall is being ripped out and is covered in plaster, paint ripped off.. ideal for the urban look! I created a few A3 pages with different colours and pages filled with Akzidenz Grotesk type and then printed them off to later PVA glue onto the wall with a roller which I hoped would give a wrinkled, worn feel.
I enlisted my boyfriend with the roller to help glue them on! I needed someone who (no offence to Chris because he is super talented with cars and a brilliant Motor Vehicle Teacher! :p) has no creative flair or direction and would just stick random pieces anywhere without overthinking it! I procrastinate too much and am too regimental in my approach which is something I did not really want! I wanted it to look random and “rough” . At the end of the evening after doing these posters I decided I needed to go away and have another go printing off more sheets and make further alterations. The blue that I used was too much and it wasn’t layered how I wanted it to be. We just ripped pieces of paper and layered them on top of each other, what I needed to do was to print 4/5 pages and stick them all on top of each other and rip into them to reveal a page at a time.
The next day in my lunchbreak at work I decided to trial a test piece on some card I ripped off a cardboard box; it was rough in texture so I thought it would have the same similar feel to a wall. It turned out to be perfect! I scrapped the wall idea totally and used this as my final piece for my design.
I then imported it into Photoshop and made some minor adjustments like changing the brightness/contrast etc. I also added the type point sizes onto the side of it to show what the type looks like at different sizes. I created 2 more pages on my Indesign document below my Helvetica pages and imported my collage poster into Indesign to start my final layout!
Digital Development
Again, I wanted a layout that was minimalistic and clean with lots of negative space. I decided to place the poster on the right hand side page and place the character alphabet of Akzidenz Grotesk on the left side.
I wanted to use Red as a predominant colour again as it represents Swiss design and also the Bauhaus influence. I wanted to be in keeping with the “Swiss Grit” style of the poster though with the “Akzidenz Grotesk” heading and decided to try something experimental and different… I watched an interview with Chris Ashworth about a year ago where he explained what sort of experimental “grit” typography he does such as sticking type to the bottom of his twin girls school shoes so that when they return back from school in the evening the type is all ragged to give that worn down texture. He then uses this in his pieces rather than using digital textures. I wanted to do something similar for the type on my page. I decided though to try the cellotape method… I made friends with a Graphic Design student on Instagram who is also into Swiss Grit and he did a demo on his page of how he created his “gritty” type. He printed his type out using a laser/inkjet printer and then covered the text with cellotape and gradually pulled away at it to rip the ink off the page onto the cellotape. It worked! It gave a great gritty texture to my type which I then imported in and tweaked to become part of my layout.
Design Development – The stages of reaching my final design and layout!
The final layouts were received VERY well when I uploaded them onto Instagram. It got the most likes my page has ever got and everyone seemed to love it! I felt very proud of this piece when it was done!
My Instagram screenshots
The final design pages and final mock up
The final mock up!
Responding to Tutor feedback…
“The sketchbooks evidence in between stages, idea development and layout/mark making: do you have any evidence of the planning for the laying for the Aksidenz poster? Is this a place where you could experiment with textures and layering with surfaces and drawing media?“
I have sketches in my sketchbook and images that I found on Pinterest that inspire the collage that I did for the Akzidenz Grotesk poster:
Work by Eduardo Seco
I agree with the feedback that I didn’t document the Akzidenz Grotesk collage all too well… but it was created entirely how it is pronounced!.. a complete happy AKZIDENT!
I had no idea really how to put the collage together for Akzidenz Grotesk. I tried first on the wall of my house PVA glueing different sheets of coloured paper that I printed out from my printer at work and this just did not work. I tried rubbing Letraset on the walls too, My plan originally was to create the poster on the wall using Letraset letters or printed type on sheets of paper that I would dampen and then rub off onto the wall!
Another thing that inspired me was a few photographs I took of the side of my old cooker… When I moved house in October 2020 I rented my house and inside it I had an awful, old cooker (possibly from the 1970s!!) when I moved it out to clean it I noticed some markings on the side of it. It was quite cool and I took the photos to bank in my resources for any future projects:
I knew I wanted to create this kind of effect but I was struggling as to know how…I then had the idea of photographing some different textures and then importing them into Photoshop to play around with for my poster. These were some of the textures I found, (again, they were all from the upstairs of my house which is currently now only starting to be renovated!)
The textures idea just wasn’t gritty enough for me though… This is where I went to work the next day feeling really frustrated at the fact that I didn’t know how best to create the idea I had in my head!!
I have a very rigid “Neat” approach to my work, everything I do is very structured and organised and I couldn’t quite get myself to create something “messy” enough!- I needed to switch off and just become careless and wreckless to see what I could create!! I had another go on my lunch break when I had the classroom to myself; I filled a paint palette up with PVA, found a screen printing roller to layer it on smooth and what I ended up with was the unexpected, perfect finished piece! I have photos that I have found in my design archive of me creating this final piece but other than me being really inspired by some collage work I found on Pinterest it happened without any prior planning or any planned sketchbook experimental work.. it was completely by accident! A really happy accident! I literally just created pages in Microsoft Word (my work laptop did not have Adobe at the time!) of block coloured pages and pages with some type using Akzidenz Grotesk, I printed them out using the laser printer and then layered them up on top of each other using PVA glue. Carelessly I just ripped sections away to reveal layers underneath. The idea was to create the feel of a really old billboard that has had hundreds of posters ripped off and layered on in its time in a really rural area of a city..
The final piece was perfect for me! In fact it seems such a shame to pack it away with all my Core Concepts work that I have thought about framing it as a showpiece!
Welcome back to design 2/10 city guidebooks! – Malmo!
I was more aware of time (or lack of!) after completing design 1: Madrid, these guidebooks are time consuming! I decided I needed to try and cut down the research part of things although this first stage is crucial to achieving winning over a brilliant design outcome . I always start my research by searching Pinterest, it is the best place to find and record inspiration I find.
I had never heard of Malmo but after looking at some photos of the place and reading about it online, it now seems like a nice place to visit! I learned that Malmo is a modern coastal city in Sweden. I wanted to follow in the footsteps of Madrid by basing it around architecture and landscapes so I searched Pinterest to see what landmarks stand out in Malmo.
The most intriguing building that I found in Malmo was “The Turning Torso” it is regarded as the first “twisted skyscraper” in the world. It was designed by spanish architect, structural engineer, sculptor and painter Santiago Calatrava. It officially opened on the 27th August 2005 and reaches a height of 190 metres with 54 storeys and 147 apartments within it. In August 2015 the Turning Torso was the winner of the 10 year award from the Council on Tall buildings and urban Habitat. It also won the 2005 Gold Emporis Skyscraper Award.
With the brief in mind I knew that I had to keep my design abstract, I was conscious that I didn’t want to make the design too pictorial and obvious as to what it was. I didn’t want to draw the Turning Torso onto my design and it be obvious what it was! The way I went about designing was to take a photograph of the Turning Torso and trace around it several times, each time taking something away so that I was finally left with the bare bones of the building. I then took the whole drawing apart and found clever ways to piece it back together but in an abstract way!
Sketchbook pages: First sketches and ideas
This is the photograph I found on Pinterest, I printed it out and I based my sketches off it:
What I ended up with was a simplified sketch – the minimalistic “bones” of the building:
From this drawing it is still obvious what the building is, I took key parts of the building and simplified it down to its simplest recognisable form. This formed the basis of my final design.
In my final design I kept the same layout as I did with Madrid as I felt that this would make the guidebooks become part of a series and be obvious that they all belonged together. I wanted to use quite “earthy” “beachy” natural colours because Malmo is a coastal town. I used blue for the Turning Torso which reflects the sky and sea and the fact that this tall building is between the two! I used a natural pop of green and yellow which would reflect sun and sand… Yellow being nice and warm also contrasts against the cool blue and green. I wanted to keep the design simple – I decided to split my design into thirds (rule of 1/3s!) and split the design up into each section. This lets the eye flow naturally and easily across the whole design. The yellow boxes allow for a pop of colour, add interest to draw the eye right to the end of the design but also represent the windows of the Turning Torso. The only flaw in my design is that I enlarged the Turning Torso to only show the lower half and a segment of the top… you can’t actually see the “turning” aspect. However, going down the route of keeping it very much abstract and not too obvious, I still really like this design and I think that you would still be able to recognise what the structure is from the key elements I’ve picked out even though they have been moved around and enlarged slightly. Negative space to me is just as much part of the design as everything else so I was adamant I wanted to keep a lot of space around the design but also to not restrict the design too much to its edges. I wanted it as a whole to remain “breathable”.
The location and how I designed the typography of “Malmo” was just as important as the rest of the design. I really toyed with the type layout again and kept questioning myself as to whether it was the right decision to make; I wanted to do something different and for it to look quite modern and edgy. Splitting Malmo into syllables also forces the eye to follow over to the other side of the design to see what the rest of the design is about.
This is the final mock-up of my Malmo guidebook! I am pleased with how it has turned out, I met my own expectations of how I wanted it to be and look like. The dominant colour used on this design is definitely the blue followed by the yellow being next in line as the subordinate colour. The green is fighting against the blue for attention which is exactly what the accent colour should be doing.
pinkangeleno.com 