This week, we focused on typography. I found it very interesting looking at typography again, but with a much more developed view of design than when I looked at in early semester 1.
I remember much of what we discussed in week 3 of UXD101 which covered typography basics, so I was much more intrigued by the historical and practical aspects of this week's lesson.
The Romans were among the first to use early typography, when they left marks on walls and more. Often, this type was accompanied with images to tell a story. To me, looking so far back at the history of type is interesting as it is clear how the basic value has stayed: people should be able to quickly understand what is being presented to them.
The first paper forms of type were frozen linguistics- meaning that these were hand drawn so only existed on one unique copy. For example, the book of Kells only has one original copy, as at this time frozen linguistics was the most viable form of typography.
Moving towards the modern day, moveable type emerged, allowing more multiple consistency copies to be quickly distributed. This is similar to what we have today, although was a much longer process as letters needed to be individually selected and hand pressed on a page.
Today, there are a wide range of options for creating print both on paper and on screen. I found it very helpful to look at how typography has emerged to what it is today as, although it has undergone significant changes in its process and outcomes, the idea has always been the same; displaying a message that is easy for people to understand.
I was aware that different fonts and styles could impact the way a message is perceived, but hadn’t made the connection that this is the exact same as tome of voice when speaking. For example, to communicate anger we often shout. With typography, upper/lower case letters, a bold typeface and certain colours can help to change a texts tone to communicate a mood.
I liked the following example we were shown in our lecture. These two texts are the exact same, yet the tone of voice completely differs. This emphasises the importance of carelly selecting typography styles to me, as it could be easy to accidentally miscommunicate tone to readers based on a simple design error.
The majority of brands have a logo which contains some form of written text, usually the same of the company. Choosing the right font for this is a lengthy process, as it involves considering the appearance, nature of the brand and consumers. Furthermore, companies tent to want to keep the same branding for as long as possible, so choosing unique fonts that seem appealing at the time may not be future proof.
Helvetica is often used, however it is a little plain, and personally I feel that it doesn’t have much personality due to the over use. There was a great increase of brands turning to Helvetica and similar sans fonts in the past 10 years to fit the sleek, modern feel. However, many ended up changing back as this change ended up making them all look very ‘samey’, leading them to return to their original serif fonts which they had used for many years, often decades, prior.
With branding, fonts need to be easily read. Serif fonts are easier to read than sans serif, however sans-serif fonts are being used increasingly by brands as many view sans-serif as old fashioned, likely due to the similarities to classical roman lettering. However, in my opinion, this just proves there longevity as they have been used for hundreds of years and still remain fir for use today.
During the lecture, we were tasked with coming up with a ‘font persona’ for a typeface. The way we approached it was very much open, so I opted for creating a unique personality to fit whichever font I would select.
We were randomly assigned a font by selecting it from a hat. I lifted out Frutiger, which I was pleased with as I had looked at Frutiger in some previous work. Before starting, I looked at a brief history of the font as a starting point. It was created in 1976 by Adrian Frutiger, a Swiss designer. It is a humanist typeface, focusing on readability for as wide of. an audience as possible. It has been described as one of the best choices for legibility in almost any situation, with Erik Spiekermann describing it as “The best general typeface ever”.