Deyton Koch Blog #2

I was looking through a magazine today and I came across these ambigrams. I think ambigrams are amazing ways to play with type. I think it would be a fun exercise and I do not know why I have never given it a shot. I enjoy looking at decorative, scripty fonts, and when someone has managed to manipulate beautiful text into an ambigram, I am usually just blown away. One problem with ambigrams a lot of the time, however, is they can become very hard to read (like the bottom left hand one, I am still not quite sure what it is supposed to say). I probably like the first one the best, and I like how they incorporated the design in the real world. A beer bottle is a perfect place for an ambigram because it is frequently turned upside down :)
On a side note, I had to include my favorite ambigram in this post. I saw this a long time ago in blockbuster (before they went out of business) and I was hoping that I would not have any trouble finding it online, but I had no idea just how famous it was.
I give you the cover of the 20th anniversary edition of "The Princess Bride"...

I love WPAS. This particular one tickles my fancy because of the chosen typeface. I love the minimal weight carried, the enormity of space occupied by the "O" & geometric qualities held throughout the typeface. This particular typeface is a sans serif type from the geometric family, and is hand-lettered, possibly derived from the "Verlag" family. WPA's constantly inspire my design because of their simplicity and bold qualities. They translate well into the medium of screen-print/flat-stock. They also hold a vast selection of typefaces & are mindful of their selections.

Kara Albe

I got this cookbook at Barne's & Noble admittedly for the cover and the pictures inside. His name and "the ultimate" are a sans serif typeface that looks like a combination of Brandon Grotesque and Gotham, while the others are a blocky decorative inline sans serif that I see often but don't know the name. All of the type is letterpress into a nicely textured kind of linen cover, front and back. This book obviously appeals to a younger, maybe hipster audience who appreciates good type, good paper, nice full-bleed photographs and bright colors. Bold and to the point, two typefaces are all that's needed. Hierarchy is established and white space is well utilized along with a cute embellishment that draws the viewer in. I'm really drawn to these typefaces and would like to use these myself, I'd like to learn letterpress. The good design on the outside pulled me in, and it was continued on the inside which is a skill I feel would be valuable, especially in book design.

This is a travel promo piece for Australia. I love the use of type; I appreciate the fluidity & legibility. The typeface used appears to be a sans serif from the decorative category. Some letters have a slight serif but for stylistic purposes. This betters my design eye because it's a great example as a text only decorative piece. It also denotes the utility of typography in mediums like flat stock art.

Bria Crain: Week 1

This is a poster designed by Luke Williams that I discovered on Fonts in Use. It utilizes Bureau Grot, a Grotesque sans-serif, for the title. The text above and below is set in LL Brown, a geometric sans-serif. The poster is advertising the production of a comedic play about time travel by the Pavement Group in Chicago, and is meant to attract the attention of locals or tourists who might be interested in coming to a show. The type is big, bold, and playful; the off-kilter text helps to hint at the comedy genre, while the jumbled carbon paper letters to the left hint at the subject matter and add visual interest. I really enjoy the addition of the photographed carbon paper to the design. It makes me think about how I can utilize unconventional materials to make stronger, more interesting work.

Amber Rowland - Young Living Essential oils

Young Living Essential Oils uses a classic serif font to define the stability and longevity of not only their oil diffusers, as shown, but of all their products. Young Living believes in the power of aromatherapy and has a variety of products to help individuals, from infancy to adulthood, to improve their over all living. By choosing a typeface that is grounded by serifs, young living chooses to focus their audience on the reliability of the products. If they had chosen a more delicate font the audience may not have taken them as seriously. 

Miguel Ramirez

This is the Schecter logo on the headstock of my guitar. Schecter is known for its electric guitars that are well suited for playing heavy metal and hard rock. For this reason, I feel that it was a great design choice to go with an old german blackletter font for the company's logo. The type is reminiscent of metal band logos, and it immediately tells the audience that these guitars are made for a specific music genre. Furthermore, the blackletter font sets it apart from the sleek logos of competing brands like Fender or Ibanez.

Kara Albe

This is a section of the menu from Z'Tejas Southwestern Grill on W. 6th Street in Austin. They advertise Happy Hour and, like any good Mexican-influenced restaurant, have a selection of margaritas, but they're also a reasonably-priced family establishment. I chose this section of the menu because it was so diverse and visually appealing, with a script font, embellishments, all caps sans serif and decorative slab typefaces, then a traditional serif for easy readability on the descriptions. The designer did a fantastic job establishing hierarchy, and even though several fonts were used it doesn't seem too busy or overwhelming. The limited color palette also helps clearly display the most important information in a beautiful cohesive way. I'm a believer in only using one, maybe two typefaces for anything, whether it's a document or a poster but this menu showed me that it's possible to use several if handled correctly. Also the paper was a very nicely textured heavy cover stock for an all-around elegant but rustic feel.

Cantara Ali - Revolutionary Summer

This is the front cover of the book Revolutionary Summer by Joseph J. Ellis, designed by Cassandra J. Pappas.  The modern, all caps type balances the very stylized script type. It almost looks hand rendered with a calligraphy pen on parchment. This book is a historical account of the years leading up to the American Revolution and according to my U.S. History professor, it was written for "the general public". I feel like it's more for the history-buff "general public." The clean, tracked out titles give the cover a sense of history and prestige. The script stands out but does not compete for attention against the rest of the cover. The type choices are very appropriate for the subject, but at the same time make the cover beautiful and interesting. I think I would like to try a similar subtle approach to a project in the future. 

Hannah Larsen

This is the cover of Design Sponge at Home by Grace Bonney, one of my favorite “coffee table” books. This is a great source of inspiration for anyone interested in interior design or DIY projects for the home. The type is arranged simply and elegantly; the title is bold with its large size and capital letters, yet delicate with its thin weight and airy letterspacing. The hierarchy remains consistent throughout the book. The thin, all caps, sans-serif type used for the title is also used throughout the book for chapter names and other primary information (such as the location of the space and the individual who designed it), while the serif type is used for the body text. I really enjoy how the white letters interact with the gold etching of the interior space, particularly how the houseplant is woven through the “D” in Design. These nuances create an elegant, stylish cover that remains clean and simple despite the amount of detail in the gold etching; it doesn’t compete with the type, but instead interacts with and enhances it in a very visually pleasing way.

Brooke Garner

Above is a picture I took after purchasing a pair of Kendra Scott earrings for a friend’s birthday. Kendra Scott uses an all Caps Serif typeface with a metallic-gold hue for her product packaging logo. Kendra Scott is a global, multimillion-dollar jewelry brand sold at places such as Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and many specialty boutiques worldwide. Kendra Scott is a fashion brand name that is familiar to women around the world and has even been spotted on celebrities who also love her unique and bold designs. The typography used in her packaging is simple and elegant which allows the attention to focus on her meticulously designed products.  Kendra Scott’s very unique and colorful designs combined with simple type allows the jewelry speak for itself. I really enjoy simple fonts against bold designs. I believe that Kendra Scott’s type choice on her packaging will influence my work by allowing myself to able to use simple type solutions incorporated with bold designs.  

Chris Flores - Bully Project

Bully Project

This is a submission to the Bully Project Mural. The film is called Bully and is a powerful documentary about the effect of bullying and the opportunities we have in our lives to mean something to other people. The artist tried to represent the duality in the chances we have when interacting, using the same image of a hand to mean different things in 3 sets. Check out the links and if you are an artist, consider submitting a project.

Mural Project
Bully Project Film

From The Artist:

"For this piece I drew the entire thing in Adobe Draw on my iPad and used Adobe Color to get just the palette I wanted. I transferred into Illustrator to crop the piece and seperate out the sets of hands, but mostly done in Draw."

Madison Hanlon

Blog 1

Oakland Surf Club window logo- Pinterest photo



Oakland Surf Club window logo has two different type faces. One is a simple all Caps San Serif font differing in size, while the other has a classic vintage 50's feel. The intended audience for this logo feels like it would relate to classy or pricey surfers. The logo can be found outside the Surf Club store in Oakland California. The logos set up is clean and spaced out. Its large cursive font catches the viewers eyes. The designers choice to just keep the font white while on a transparent background gives it a simple but classy feel. I am attracted to vintage fonts and certainly love clean and classy logo fabrications, so incorporating those two elements will be a big influence in my designing choices.

-Madison Hanlon

Deyton Koch (January 26, 2015)

Earlier last week I got this interesting envelope in the mail. (Ignore the ripping, my mom opened my mail. Which, by the way, is illegal, mother. Also ignore the address if you are a stalker or murderer.)

Inside this awesome envelope was a little booklet advertising paper. The "French Paper" this company sells is really beautiful but it was their stencil font and their context photography using the font that really caught my eye. Here are some photos of the book:

This is all very random, but a day or two after I got this in the mail, I went to Under the Radar, which is a cool little event that the Austin chapter of AIGA puts on every other month, and the guest speaker was Karl Hebert ("Golden Lunchbox"), who actually is a Texas State Alumni. He was really inspiring and entertaining. Anyway, he designed a little poster that they sell at the meeting to raise money for the event.

So I am going to try to tie the whole blog together now...

First of all, this poster was printed on that awesome French Paper that I was talking about earlier. You can not tell but it is shiny, metallic, and high quality paper and print job. And they were passing out those little advertising booklets that I had gotten in the mail (minus the awesome envelope, that my mom ripped). The poster is a cool story too. Hebert works at McGarrah Jessee now, and apparently they have a weekly meeting. Every week for one year, during this meeting, he would draft out the word "super" and then draw it. So he had a collection of exactly 52 final draft hand-drawn "super"s that be ripped out, collected, and taped to his computer at his desk. This poster does not do the work that he put into this endeavor justice. I tried to take a picture of his slide show, but I was too slow. And, in my opinion, he did not even choose his better ones to make this poster, but I still had to have it. Hebert really encouraged doing things by hand and not relying so much on digital, which I really agree with.

Ashley Tann

FontsInUse.com

This typography is the title page of a Swedish book called Schiff nach Europa, which was designed by Karl Gerstner and published in 1957. The book is about a transatlantic voyage of the ship Andrea Doria. The typeface used looks very similar to Helvetica, but, as Fonts In Use points out, is most likely Akzidenz-Grotesk. I love that this was produced in 1957, and yet is still very modern-looking. The typographic solution is so simple: cutting strips of the title and adjusting their placement. But even though it is simple, it is also very effective in communicating what the book is about: the voyage. This typography reminds me that sometimes returning to basics can be the best solution for a design problem. 

Robert Johnson blog post 1-27-15

As I scrolled through pages and pages of various type examples to find one to comment on for this blog, I came across this old concert poster. The thing that struck me first was the hierarchy of type. From my own untrained eye I found the type size, color and location tended to direct my eye in the way that gave me the most important information first and allowed me to find the smaller typed items after the bolder items had grabbed my attention. The musicians name is in a unique, custom font that gives a country-creole sort of feel which, if that is the sort of music he plays is spot on...otherwise it could be a little too stylized for music that isnt related (Ive never heard the music so I cant judge it at this time)
Ive also noticed that the type at the bottom, which is smallest, also has a bright color set on a dark background which allows it to pull attention without taking up much space. The justified, all caps website at the bottom however just doesnt feel like it fits with the rest of the text, and I think would be more successful had it been in small caps, or even centered rather than justified. I think the large spaces between each letter is distracting.
Overall I think this is a reasonably successful use of type.

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