Final poster and button badge

For this class, we finalized our poster and button badge designs. 

For my poster, I increased the size of the main block at the top, which included the name of the typeface and the various letters. I thought there was too much white space in my previous design, which made it look empty rather that clear. Additionally, I increased the size of the year in order to make it have more importance. Finally, I increased the leading and tracking of the main block of text, so it would be more readable; since Bodoni is such a thick font, it can be difficult to read without these additions. I am not completely happy with my design; I wanted to break up the big block of text at the bottom so it would be easier to digest, but I did not get any inspiration and eventually ran out of time.

---

My button badges I am much more satisfied with. I made minimal changes to these. In the second design, I adjusted the placement of “Bodoni,” so that the tail of the ‘Q’ directs the eye to it.

For the third design, I put the circular text into grayscale, so the design wasn’t as overpowering, and I also increased the font size of “Bodoni.”

---

Finally, we were supposed to create “false evidence” for our compositions – by manipulating images of poster boards and bags or shirts to put the buttons on, for example.

Poster and button badge, draft

In class on Thursday, we did an exercise in which we traced the elements of our poster, identifying, the main blocks, the path the eye takes throughout the composition, the white space, and the main focus of the poster. This was helpful because it allowed me to see what was working in my poster and what was not, without having to worry about the actual text. It gave a basic visual rendition of the successes and failures of my poster.

 

---

As homework, we were to begin work on the first draft of our final project on typography – a poster using any elements of typography we chose, in addition to the ability to use grayscale on the text and background and rotation, based off one of our sketches from the previous assignment; in addition we were to create three “button badges,” small-scale representations of our typeface, in a 1.5in-diameter circle.

 

In my poster, I created a grayscale jumble of letters beneath the word “Bodoni,” in order to attempt to illustrate the various elements of the typeface that I discuss later in the text block. Since this is the most important element, I made it very large, with the rest of the content appearing in a smaller block below, separated from the upper half by the horizontal line intersected by the artist’s name.

 

 

For my button badges, I experimented with several ideas. In the first, I chose to emphasize the name of the typeface. I gave the name a bigger font size than in the other designs, and the only other letter I used was a “B” – the first letter of Bodoni.

In the second button, I wanted to emphasize some of the unique features about Bodoni, such as the vertical tail of the ‘Q’, the contrasting serifs on the ‘c’ and ‘C’ and the cupped serif on the ‘b.’ The name of the typeface was less important here, so I de-emphasized it by decreasing its size. I wanted the features to speak for themselves, so I made them very large but did not include the majority of the actual letter, relying instead on the viewer’s ability to use closure to determine its identity.

In the final button, I wanted to emphasize the overall look of Bodoni, so I used every letter. In retrospect, I think it is a little busy, so for further iterations I might want to play with using a light font or experimenting with grayscale.

Typography Hierarchy (part 3)

For this assignment, we were instructed to create five sketches of our poster. This time, we were allowed to use any typographic element(s) we desired (still no color or graphics), such as stroke weight, grayscale, rotation, size/scale, spacing, and alignment. This gave a lot of freedom and allowed me to experiment much more than did the previous assignment. Of course, it is important to remember that just because you can use something doesn’t mean you should.

---

 

Notes: For the smaller text, I used lines to represent the words; I included leading phrases where relevant. After the first sketch, I stopped trying to write in actual Bodoni (for obvious reasons).

1.  I emulated the huge poster font I thought worked so well in many of my earlier compositions, on top of an entirely grey background. I then had the text in the bottom half of the page at a small size because it was not as important.

2. I created a grid using the letters of Bodoni to create horizontal rows, with two columns (the right being larger than the left). Ideally, the placement of the text would emphasize this grid.

3. I put Bodoni atop a grayscale cluster of letters (difficult to see here). I imagined some famous example jumping out – i.e., Vogue, Mamma Mia, Nirvana, etc. The rest of the text I placed in a justified block to contrast with the chaos of the upper half.

4. I had the majority of the background in grayscale, with the name of the typeface almost part of the section of gray (it would be the same grayscale value/shade of gray). The rest of the text would be in the gray section. I would use a larger scale than I did in the rest of the composition.

5. I used a black (not absolute black, of course, but approximately) background, with the name of the typeface in white. For the rest of the text, I would create white blocks (I’m actually not sure if we’re allowed to do this), and place the text on top of them in black. I didn’t want to use white-on-black for the text of the main block because it’s often difficult to read, especially with the extremely thin lines of Bodoni.

Typography Hierarchy (part 2)

For this assignment, we were each given a typeface and instructed to make a poster about it. For the first draft, we were given a few limitations: we were to use variations on the scale of the text with only two of the other typographic variables (line spacing, stroke weight, indentation/alignment). I found this challenging because it was difficult to restrict myself to only two of these additional variables, especially because I found that when using scale, it generally looked awkward not to use line spacing. As a result, I used line spacing in the majority of my compositions. Some of my ideas I had to trash right away simply because I had too much text to fully realize them.

---

 

For this composition, I chose to use font weight and line-spacing. The name of the typeface is in the “Poster Compressed” font, with the rest of the text in Italic. All of the text has been center-aligned. In this case, I found that the center alignment worked well, because most of the lines of text were approximately the same length, and in combination with the italic font, it created a very elegant look, fitting for Bodoni. I do think that the huge size of the name of the typeface overwhelms the rest of the text a little bit.

---

For this composition, I wanted to create something that called to mind a movie poster, specifically that for Mamma Mia!, which is one of the most recognizable uses of Bodoni in recent popular culture. Once again, I used the poster compressed font for the name of the typeface, and used regular for the rest. The name of the designer I placed directly beneath the name of the typeface, similar to the placement of the tagline in the actual movie poster. The rest of the text I placed at the bottom of the page. Except for the name of the typeface, I used the regular font, and all of the text was center-aligned.

 

---

 

In this composition, I wanted to experiment with alignment, so I chose not to use font weight as a defining factor. I found that the name of the typeface, in regular font, seemed no to fill enough space at the top of the page (perhaps because I had grown accustomed to the heaviness of the poster condensed font), so I placed it at the bottom of the page. I tried to create a cascade with the rest of the text, so that the eye would jump straight down to the name of the typeface first.

Typographic hierarchy (part 1)

The assignment for today was to use a given block of text about the Century font to create nine variations of a poster, according to given specifications. We had free reign over where to place the block of text on the page and how long/wide we wanted the text to be, but otherwise we had to follow rather rigid specifications. We were to create three variations on each of three sets of instructions, and for each the font had to be Century Gothic 18/25, and we were not allowed to alter the order of the text.

---

1. Select any two stroke weights of the typeface. Set the text in a combination of those two weights, basing your decisions on hierarchy. No linespacing or shifting the type. Only one alignment (left or right). B/W (no color).

For the first variation, I used Regular and Bold fonts. I put the name of the typeface in bold, and then utilized the bold font throughout the rest of the text to emphasize important words or facts that I felt were important to understanding the information. For example, I bolded the name of the designer and important typographic qualities. I used a simple left alignment and placed the block of text on the left side of the page, approximately centered lengthwise.

 

For the second variation, I used the Italic and Bold Italic fonts, using a justified center alignment, placing the block of text on the bottom center of the page. The only piece of text that I emphasized with the heavier font was the name of the typeface, in an attempt to show that all other text is only describing this essential piece of information.

 

 

For the final variation, I used the Bold Italic and Regular fonts, placing the block of text with a right alignment on the upper right portion of the page. I emphasized the name of the typeface, the designer who created it, and the year it was first designed with the heavier font. I found that this composition did well to emphasize these parts of the information, because of the difference in font, but I felt the alignment made the body of the text more difficult to read.

 

---

2. Select one stroke weight of the typeface. Select all the type in that weight. Insert linespace (return key) between any two lines of type content, once or more than once. You may insert more than one linespace between any two lines of type. B/W (no color). Only one alignment (left or right).

 

For this first composition, I used a right alignment and bold font. I used linespacing to emphasize each of the important blocks of text – the name of the typeface; the name of the designer and the year it was created; its most important use; and the paragraph of extraneous information. I placed the block of text at the bottom right of the page. I thought that in this composition the right alignment worked better than it did in the previous one, but I was still not very satisfied with it.

 

In the next composition I used a center justified alignment and italic font. I used three linespaces to emphasize the name of the typeface, and then an additional space after the name of the designer and the year it was designed. The rest of the text I felt was more supplementary info, important but not absolutely essential, so I kept it as one block.

 

 

In this final composition I used a regular font and a left alignment, placing the block of text at the top left of the page. I used linespacing to separate the text into three blocks: first, the name of the typeface; second, the most important information involving who it was designed by, when, and for what media; third, the supplementary information about the typeface.

 

---

3. Select one stroke weight of the typeface. Shift lines of type horizontally left or right, resulting in only two flush-left margins. No linespacing. B/W (no color).

 

For the first composition, I used a regular font and arranged the basic facts about the typeface in a column on the left. The rest of the text I kept in a wide block on the right side of the page. In terms of separation of the two columns, I think this worked best, because the distinct line on the left of the large column provides a clear defining line at the split of the two segments.

 

 

I used the same structure for the next composition, but instead used a bold font and switched the sides of the blocks of text. I think this composition is much less effective than the earlier one, because it lacks the dividing line formed by the edge of the paragraph in the first composition.

 

 

 

For the last composition, I only separated out the name of the typeface. I used the italic font. I also made the larger block of text narrower, so that the distinction between the two blocks would be clearer. I think this goal was successful, but I think it would have worked better if I had changed the placement of the two columns, so that the name of the type face was on the left, and the larger block was on the right, once again using the dividing line formed by the edge of the paragraph to the design’s advantage.

---

This assignment helped me learn a lot about the effect of various typographic elements, such as line spacing and font weight. It’s clear that even the smallest change in position of text or any other element can have a large effect on what the viewer perceives as important in a composition.