Decorative flow

I usually don't gravitate towards whispy and obviously decorative typefaces, but the movement and possibility of this particular specimen drew me to share it. This artist creates free flowing linear forms that try to convey each letter form. She uses a serif type for her template and then with a pen carefully illustrates a smoke or fabric like essence to each letter. Especially heading into book design and production, I am very intrigued by this concept. This inspires my design abilities in two ways: it reminds me to take existing things and work/build upon them. It also concentrates my eye for very fine detail, the necessity of detail and the delicate balance between minimal and legible.

Swing, swing swing

 Sam's Burger joint, a swing dancing club down in the heart of San Antonio, has a great great neon sign that was first designed back in 1970, the name "Sam's" is in a hand written script, with the S at a slight angle as if swing dancing its self. I find it interesting how this much character could be put into glass and a neon sign. 

Ashley Tann

Photo found at jasonbooher.com 

This is a book cover for Lord of the Flies designed by Jason Booher, the art director of Blue Rider Press. The audience is anyone wanting, or obligated, to read this book. I'm not sure of the typeface used, but it is a sans-serif. I like that Booher chose a simple typeface because there is already a lot happening with the layout and the background image. The background image is a Rorschach test mark that, on its side, resembles a pig, and standing up feels like blood and violence. The layout of the type is frenzied-feeling and somehow ominous. Although the title and author's name have different styles, the mixture of the two on the page hurts legibility. I'm not too upset with this though because I think it ties in so well to the book--it's like the type is a visual demonstration of the psychological traumas the boys endure on the island. This is a good example of using type to deliver a message outside of readability. This reminds me that, in my own work, I can use type as a visual tool.

Deyton #6 (Play the game!)

Hey classmates :)
You all should take a minute to play this game to see how you do. It's pretty fun and super fast.
Kerning Game
I am embarrassed to say that I got a 24 on the word "Type" but I made a 100 on 3 words lol

This is actually slightly relevant to my blog this week because I am posting about a free calendar I got from Half Price Books last week (when I bought my example of an exhibition catalog). The game is relevant because I love the Half Price Books' logo if only they would fix the kerning on the word Books-- it has always bothered me. Anyway, here is a couple of the spreads from the calendar:

The header and subheads are the same condensed, geometric san-serif in all caps. The rest of the text is in a similar font that is even more condensed making it very hard to read at the tiny scale, though it might be necessary to fit all of the information into the boxes. They are very successful with the hierarchy of the information portrayed on the layout. The drop quotes and images captions in all caps, like the headers, making them much easier to read.  The layouts are so similar that the random and barely noticeable variations seem pointless to me. The outline is overkill for the "bent corner" decoration, and the tan corner works so much better because the black type is even harder to read on the red background. I like how the image caption overlaps the image and the background is slightly transparent so you can see the image barely behind the words, but it does not lose any legibility, I like that better in the caption that is outlined. I also personally like the line work, but it is unnecessary and the spread is already so busy. They should have taken the most successful of each spread and carried it through all the months, or made the differences seem more deliberate or with reason.

Kara Albe

Trader Joe's grocery store caters to people who are environmentally and health-conscious, older people but mostly young adults and families. It's very trendy, eco and design-minded. Since everything in the store is their brand, they are able to create a really diverse yet cohesive look that encompasses all of their products. I went up and down the aisles just looking at the products for fun and many of them had beautiful exteriors, but for this post I decided to focus on the seemingly hand-rendered price signs. There are 4 or 5 different typefaces if you will that are used in black on a light background. The boldness helps them stand out, which is extremely helpful if you're just browsing the shelves as I was. The secondary information is easy to read but there is an obvious hierarchy created among the elements of each tag. I feel, depending what you're going for, that hand lettering is much more personal and engaging than your average type treatment. I'd like to find tasteful effective ways to use my own lettering in an informative capacity.

Madison Hanlon

                                                                           Blog 6:
                                                     
I came across this poster on Pinterest. I decided to mix up the blog by posting a "what not to do" in type design. I found this poster to be very funny. I never realized how annoying bad typesetting could be. I can honestly say I picture myself bringing this poster into indesign and manually fixing the kerning and leading. I know the font was probably also picked out in hopes to further "piss off your designer friends" but it actually doesn't bother me as much. I believe the font the designer used is helvetica.
Although it may make readers cringe this is such a genius design, communicating the main intention of the text. I will try to stay away from this bad choice of typesetting in future projects... unless it is used for a specific intention.

Cantara Ali : Week 5

This is a series of tea packaging designed by the agency Horse. There are several typefaces on this project, there is a slab serif for the logo and a script for the headers as well as a simple serif for the body text and a geometric sans serif to describe what tea or coffee type the package holds. The packaging is for tea and coffee from and eccentric British company. The mix of typefaces is quirky and hails to Victorian type practices without going all the way. The curving baselines contribute to the eccentric feeling. I hope to take this example of how to mix multiple typefaces in this trendy Victorian style without being overwhelming.