Design Practice: Making a Typeface

How will we know if our typeface has worked?

• Does the response work across all glyphs?
• The glyphs are legible 
• Its consistent and recognisable as related fonts
• the modifications are consistent
• what distinguishes them
• scale that works

e.g. Gill Sans font is different for each area but together work as a typeface.
How far can we push the boundries of a typeface. go beyond legibility and readability.

italics are no more than a 12 degree angle or it shouldn't be less than half the x height.
Italic is a slanted serif font! eg Roman fonts. Oblique is a slanted san serif eg Gothic fonts.

The questions we need to ask ourselves before modifying the font is:

1. what are you going to modify?
2. how are you going to modify it?
3. how bold can bold be?
4. how light can light be?
5. how italic can italic be?

The three things needed when considering making a typeface are consistency, distinction and modification.

Brief 5 - Message and Delivery: Info-graphics

This piece of info-graphics uses 3 main colours plus stock. This piece on Nuclear Power has managed to compact a lot of information into a small space whilst not looking over packed or busy. There are separate sections for separate parts of information and appropriate displays to illustrate the points.

I really like the idea of creating infographics however I don't know whether it would be appropriate because its hardly shocking, facts don't jump out at you and change your opinion.

Brief 5 - Message and Delivery: Research into Two Tone

One of the brief restrictions was that it had to be two colours and stock colour. This obviously affects what can be produced and how it will look. Because of this restriction it only seemed logical to do some research into other pieces of design, which may not be a relevant story, but that only use to colours. This way it is easier to see what colours work well together and how shape and composition can affect the layout of the piece. Below are some examples.

On the two posters above the use of a creamy off white background makes a real change from white. The red on top is less harsh as there is a lower contrast and the simplicity of the image in the centre with the small text either directly above or below on the right leads your eye to the central image.

 

The advertisements above primarily focus on the colours orange and blue and using white or an off white for backgrounding and outlines. These colours may not seem like a first choice but they compliment each other so well. The orange adds a warm sense whilst drawing the eye to text on the two with text. The blue levels out the advertisements and makes the orange less empowering. The 'for the love of letters' poster has a pritn screened element to it. This makes it look so much more personal and intriguing. The coloured blocks aren't perfect but this makes it more curious and feel like a piece of art as well as advertising. This is definitely a route to explore even though it may not fit the story of nuclear power.

Orange alone or with the strong contrast of black and white seems to be another way of advertising. The poster above and book page spread really use the colour well. The simplicity of the text almost becomes transparent as it doesn't even spark question to why it was chosen and placed in its position. 

Context of Practice: Semiotic Analysis

The connotations behind this Camels cigarette advert are showing that Camels cigarettes are the best for you. The advert features a doctor, it is clear that Camels want you to know he is a doctor by placing a large medical instrument on his head and dressing him in a white, almost surgical, outfit. We associate the doctor with being knowledgable and only recommending something to us that will benefit us. There fore the referent, the doctor, symbolises the idea of a healthy life style. The image of a doctor is a shared consensus that we have agreed this is what a doctor is like. The doctor becomes a symbol because it isn't indexing the meaning of cigarettes like smoke to a fire, rather it acts as a symbol to many things - one of which being sensible and providing good, beneficial advice. 

We infer the looks of the man into the product. This means that we are judging how the man looks and taking this meaning and relating it as code to form the sign of cigarettes. For example the man featured is shown as a middle aged, wealthy doctor who takes care of himself. We connote this from the facts we see and register subconsciously. The fact his teeth are white and are neat and inline suggests he takes care of himself. He is freshly shaved with his skin in good condition also implies that he cares for his appearance and health as well as showing his age. As a society we relate age to experience, the older someone is then normally the more experience they have and the wiser and better at advice they tend to be. He is a Doctor which implies he is in a high up position of power, is knowledgeable and would only make decisions which would benefit him as he knows the consequences. From this we infer the idea that even though we don't know the harmful side affects, that if a doctor is smoking then it must be acceptable and fine, if not beneficial, for us because he knows the risks.  

All of these codes make up the sign shown and put us in ease about smoking Camels cigarettes. You can see that this advertisement would have worked because if you had someone that wasn't so highly regarded by society such as a scruffy teenager or a homeless person advertising the cigarettes then people would disregard them as not only a good brand but healthy for you.

The typography used is worth noting, the word 'fresh' and 'camels' is used in a bright orange compared to the rest being a bland and smaller black, instinctually relates the words together. Now when we think of Camel cigarettes you think of the word fresh.

Denotatively this advert just looks like a man holding cigarettes and smiling but beneath the surface we connote so many codes to the picture of the man that smoking almost becomes recommended.  

Brief 5 - Message and Delivery: Research

One thing that is useful to research is how other designers have tried to show the issue of nuclear power. When I began researching this it became clear relatively quickly that there are very few pieces of design explaining to pros and cons in an non bias way. Most pieces were anti Nuclear focusing on the iconic mushroom cloud. 

The anti nuclear posters are featured below as some of them use subtle tactics to make their point. The majority of them are created by Greenpeace and they use a range of different methods.

Firstly the obvious showing of a nuclear plant but covering it in white and drawing a child like sketch of what the scenery behind it would look like. The caption "its about time something was put right" displayed in the bottom left corner doesn't distract from the image rather lets it speak for itself. 

The clever use of russian dolls in the shape of coffins to remember the Chernobyl disaster that happened in russia subtly reminds people of the downsides to nuclear power.

This advert states "in France we don't pollute. We use nuclear energy" it is drawn onto a boomerang with mechanical and tubes illustrated in the background. To me this piece is trying to show that what ever you put out there will come back to haunt you in a sense. However it can be slightly misleading because the piece and slogan itself seems to suggest its for nuclear power but the fact it is designed by greenpeace strongly contradicts this, unless they are trying tone ironic?! 

A genius but subtle take on the situation. The poster is showing the idea that society are teaching their children then there has been radiation in the family for years stating it like a family air loom or a family trait, so casually. This really gets their point across that we shouldn't stand for nuclear energy with its radioactivity or else it will become part of us.

   

The concept behind this piece of having the nuclear plant resembling an iceberg. The fact that you can see a very small amount on the surface but there is so much more under the surface that we are not aware of. Their message becomes more engrained with the chosen shape of the mushroom cloud underneath and the captopn "everything you don't want to know"

It has become useful to see what campaigns have been created prior, however none of these are looking at it from the view that I wanted to take. I have decided to create an educational piece of work which explain the pros and cons of nuclear power without being bias.

Brief 5 - Message and Delivery: Research into Possible Concepts

The brief specifies that one poster has to be purely typography. However this doesn't mean it has to be generated on the computer. Creating the typography by hand and layering it would fit in better with the idea of Terry Borders work, this would also link them together as a suit which was a vital factor in the brief.  On the right is an idea that could work well by having the text all cut out individually and layered to show the 3D and hand made aspects. Whether it would work like the advert on the right by showing the background or actually whether it should be scaled to fit the whole poster could be something that is played around with. This would also play well into the rules of only being allowed to use two colours as you could preselect the colours prior to creating it. It would also allow to put a lot of information in one place but not over crowd it. 

 On the right is an great idea that would be suitable for the 3rd joint poster with the combination of typography and image. The handmade fonts filling in the gaps and explaining a story provides a simple but affective campaign. Whilst looking at it you are not bombarded with images or text, it is simple and clean, you can understand its message before reading the text but then reading the text helps to give it more context.

The simplicity of the idea on the right shows creating the letter into a 3D box out of cardboard. It works for the advertisement for pack and store as it is showing a minimal room and how much more space you would have by using their boxes to store your items. The box idea may also work well for Nuclear Awareness as the 3D factor allows both sides of the argument to be shown and then the audience can make up their own mind.

Brief 5 - Message and Delivery: Research into Possible Concepts

Terry Border is an artist who uses everyday mundane objects and turns them into a scene portraying something. The reason behind looking at him is to get ideas for the piece we have to create where we can only use an image. No text or explanation is allowed so having an image that could be created out of everyday objects and yet still narrate a story would work well. However it is unknown what objects could be used for nuclear power but this is something that could be experimented with after the crit.

His use of colour and lighting works well together in defining the photo. This would definitely be an interesting idea to play around with especially since we are confined to two colours and stock colour which may make it harder and show this type of image doesn't work if its not in colour or it may have a higher impact especially with the topic of nuclear power.

He has also used his style to advertise for certain companies, as shown above. The two adverts for oxo play around with items relevant to their slogans.