In The Bag (part two) by Graphic Communication

BAG

in the

Special Fontophile Edition

Issue Two of the BA Graphic Communication design magazine

v.2

in the

CONTENTS Introduction Back to the Future page 18 The new World Order page 37

Insignia KateHarrison Hoefler Text Dan Ulf-Hansen Justify Lazy Katja Payne Kilogram Tom Stockley Levi Brush Erik Fagermann Lydian John Walsh MM Paris Laura Upton

Mod Rockers Gemma Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Hagan Novaresse Rachel Lamb Rayzor Sharp Ruben Nascemento Rockwell Tom Higgins Rockwell Natasha Sedgebeer

in the

CONTENTS Palatino Max Dean Perpetua Jessica Cleeve Schiller Antiqua Chris Porter Sketchblock Bethany Kelsall Snipershot Kate Harrison Soraya Rosie Feltwell Symbol Katja Payne Trajan Pro Jennie Metcalfe Trebuchet Erik Fagermann Tribbon Chris Porter

Val Joshua Cotterill VTKS Wayne Morrish Whiskey Town Mia Tivey You are Loved Rebecca Howard

This magazine features outcomes of a first year undergraduate graphic design project. A number of typefaces and works by influential graphic communicators and font designers have been thoughtfully presented or re-presented to distil character, essences & strengths. It is hoped that the critical spirit and affection with which the work on these pages has been undertaken will be appreciated. Care has been taken to acknowledge origins of materials. However, anyone wishing to see any image removed, or receive an alternative credit line should contact Ruth Dineen in the first instance: rdineen@uwic.ac.uk.

in the

v.2

INTRODUCTION We are delighted to launch issue two of our annual design magazine, written and produced by first-year students on the BA Graphic Communication programme at Cardiff School of Art & Design. This year’s magazine ‘in the BAG’, is devoted to the delights of type. It reflects the students’ theoretical and practical understandings of typography and font design - revealed through studio projects, articles about typefaces, and through the design of the magazine itself. This is volume two of two. We hope you enjoy it...

InsigniaNEVILLEBRODY Insignia was designed by British graphic designer Neville Brody in 1986, and was originally created to be used as the headline font for Arena magazine. It was later released as a font by Linotype in 1989. Since then it has become fairly popular, being used in NBCs adverts for their coverage of the Winter Olympics, as well as numerous album covers such as Stings classic album “Brand New Day”. Brody’s designs have received international recognition for their highly innovative style, reaching almost cult status. The designer has consistently pushed the boundaries of visual communication in all media through his experimental and challenging work, and continues to extend the visual languages we use through his exploratory creative expression. Insignia has the basic forms of constructed grotesque fonts and was influenced by the new typography of the Bauhaus during the 1930s. It’s san-serif, monoline, round and sharp forms reflect the zeitgeist of that age, suggesting technology and progress.

Insignia is a display typeface, immediately identifiable by cross-strokes on the capitals that cut through the main stems of the capital letters. They lend themselves well to dramatic logo configurations. Like other Brody fonts, Insignia is also immediately recognizable as one of the hip, cutting-edge classics of our own computer era. The alternate font has half-serifs on the E, F, and Z; squeezed bowls on the P and R; a wider J; and an S made from protractor-shaped parts. Insignia is a geometric typeface, with a large xheight as well as large counters. They have small ascenders and descenders, and the characters are expanded and square. These qualities give the font a masculine and strong feel. The typeface also features alternative versions for the f character that allow commonly following characters to have ligaments, best seen in the fl letterforms. One of the strongest characters from the typeface is the upper case K. It has a slight extension of the join of the two legs, that adds a feel of movement. This greatly helps the typefaces energy, as a large amount of the other characters are so geometric, they can feel slightly stagnant. There are a number of other characters, like B,D,E,F,H,P and R that all feature the same small decorative feature. These are all caps, so don’t appear to frequently in the body of texts, but definitely add to the typeface.

BDEFHP&R

KATE HARRISON http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Brody http://www.linotype.com/872/insignia-family.html http://www.researchstudios.com/neville-brody/

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Hoefler by HoeMer Written by Daniel Ulf-Hansen

Hoefler Text is a modern, but old styled serif typeface. American Jonathan Hoefler designed it in 1991, when digital typography was still very much in its infancy. It was created to allow for the composition of complex typography; as such it takes cues from a range of classic fonts, like Garamond and Janson. Hoefler Text is effectively a blending of seventeenth-century typography. Because of this it has less contrast of thick and thins than

some serif typefaces such as Garamond, a typeface revived from around the eighteenth century. The Baroque art movement also influenced this period, characterised by “dynamic movement, overt emotion and self-confident rhetoric”, but also by an attention to detail and a delight in elegance. This is more obvious in the italic versions of Hoefler text. It can be particularly seen in the vast range of decorative elements available in Hoefler Text’s full family. Hoefler Text uses ligatures, real small capitals, old style figures and swashes as well as having

a matching ornament font. It was, until OpenType made advanced typographic features more common, one of only a few fonts in common usage that contained these features. Hoefler text also pioneered new features in typefaces, Italic small caps and case specific punctuation. In total Hoefler Text features 27 different styles, encompassing three weights (regular, bold, and black), each in roman and italic, each featuring small caps (both roman and italic) and italic swash caps. The most notable use of Hoefler Text in modern culture was the Wikipedia logo, until 2010, when the logo was redesigned, replacing Hoefler Text with Linux Libertine.

Other than this there are no real features of it in modern logos, possibly since it lacks the quirky features associated with logos. Hoefler Text has an old fashioned and formal look to it, yet despite this still feels fairly youthful, making it very useful for a wide range of publications. The plain Roman style has a very traditional feel, making it ideal as a book face, being legible at almost all sizes. It fits in nicely between the more modern looking Garamond and the very classic Times. Hoeflersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; real depth comes from the wide range of decorative alternates it has to Roman. The straight Italic version has a far different look to Roman, with some letters being particularly decorative. The black weight has its

own personality, being very useful as a header, especially with its small caps set. One of the most beautiful elements in Hoefler Text is the alternate Ampersand, from the italic family. It is extremely elegant and flowing, while still maintaining a fairly dominant presence on the page, as they do not have huge contrast between thicks and thins. Hoefler text is a modern but classically styled typeface, that is very useful, as it has more personality than a great deal of other serif fonts. The wide range of decorative elements add to its appeal as well. x

http://typedia.com/explore/typeface/hoefler-text/ http://www.planet-typography.com/news/typeface/hoefler-text.html http://khc0716.blogspot.com/2009/09/hoefler-text.html

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KILO GRA Font by Kallegraphics Article by Tom Stockley

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Kilogram is a new post-modern font by up and coming typographer Kallegraphics is the and designer, Kalle. It's based on another font, Anagram, by Nick pseudonym of a Curtis, but takes a lot more of a stylish approach. Whereas Anagram Norwegian designer, focuses on small floral flairs to letters, Kilogram takes a different who uses it to mess approach, and around with design becomes a lot more and do personal blocky and geometric projects in his spare time. Thus, Kilogram was released for free giving it a much more without having a real name behind it, which gives it a more social contemporary aspect then a font tied down to a certain corporation or studio. aesthetic. This seems to be reflected in the design of the font - it has a real free spirit feel behind it, which is impressive given its massive weight and sharp edges.

AM nicksfonts.com kallegraphics.com

In his full time life, Kallegraphics claims to be a senior designer at Mission since 2003, looking after the identity of projects and keeping an eye over everything from the logo to animations, websites, signings and more. He started off going to art school, aiming to practice illustration. However, the lack of illustration courses in Norway drove him towards graphic design, and from there he "started his fall to the dark However, to combat this, Kalle has taken another seemingly side". He has won strange decision - instead of including lower cases, the whole typeseveral awards over the face is upper case - but some (most) letters have alternate versions years, including a gold available by typing them as upper case. It's not unusual to include and silver 'God award', alternate versions of fonts with additional swashes etc., but having which doesn't sound them so easily available quickly becomes evidence of a very tightly pretentious at all. designed font - mixing and matching versions of letters gives a great variation to designs. As a post-modern font, Kilogram has really impressed me. It has a special charm and character that most typefaces lack, and is useful in a great variety of scenarios. Even though it can be slightly harder to use than just typing your sentence and calling it a day, when used right it becomes something special, and you'll start to notice the small details like how the floating 'O' and and swash on the 'Q' fit together just so: and you'll realise how incredible this font is.

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Levi Brush is a typeface created by a Romanian designer called Levi Szekeres in 2007. Levi Brush is a hand-drawn typeface made with a paintbrush on paper, then digitalized. It’s made in a relatively sloppy way, which gives the font a youthful and organic feel. The font is high contrast and very bold in some letterforms, especially the ‘s’. In comparison with the ‘i’ you can really see the difference. You can clearly see the brushstrokes and it looks like Szekeres had a lot of fun when forming this typeface.

Levi Brush , being hand-drawn, has inconsistent x-heights and descenders – as in the lowercase ‘g’ which extends lower than those of any other letter. The ascender of the lowercase ‘k’ similarly extends higher than those of other letters. Rather than being a distraction, these features enhance the typeface’s expressive qualities. The Typeface has a particular active liveliness in its lower-case. The upper-case, though less active, retains a visual-consistency.

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The upper-case ‘J’ is unusual – with its aggressive shape and slightly horizontal central stroke slashing across the letter, it’s almost like a reversed ‘E’. The upper-case ‘H’, conversely, appears a little to discreet compared to the other upper-case letters – being significantly more compressed. And the upper-case ‘U’ seems to be little more than an enlarged lower-case ‘u’. Combined, these quirks add to this typeface’s appeal. The Levi Brush numerals² add consistently to the font-range. The 5 and 8, being smaller than the other numbers, offer a non-aligning numeral characteristic.

The small dots of ink spattering around almost every letterform add to the authentic hand-painted feel of the typeface. Without these it would have felt more ‘artificial’ – computerized. Bigger dots of ink splattered around a few letterforms, especially the ‘t’ and ‘s’ add to that ‘natural-look’ variation. Some letterforms work particularly well together – forming, perhaps inadvertent ,ligatures – as between the ‘v’ and ‘i’ where the ‘v’ stroke blends into the dot over the ‘i’ in a visually-pleasing manner¹.

Levi Brush joins harmoniously to the range of contemporary ‘organic’ fonts. Its playfulness and variation of stroke-thickness offers very expressive qualities – reminiscent of the Spain logotype³ – if a little more robust than that logo.

The small dots of ink spattering around almost every letterform add to the authentic hand-painted feel of the typeface 1

References: http://www.loremipsum.ro/ | http://www.dafont.com/levi-szekeres. d1472 | http://www.dafont.com/profile.php?user=63373

In summary, Levi Brush is full of life. Certainly not a text typeface, its many expressive qualities work particularly well in display contexts – such as with posters and logos – offering the designer plenty of opportunities for visual fun and play.

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Ruth Dineen

“

FUTURE Typographic history continues to be a vital and expressive aspect of our typographic present and, indeed, our typographic future. It flourishes in the form of a myriad of traditional typefaces, reworked for a digital age. These expressively varied typefaces range from the clear elegance of old-face styles such as Caslon and Garamond, or the chiselled panache of Palatino, to the sparkling vivacity of Baskerville and the stylish confidence of modern-style faces, epitomised by Bodoni and Fenice. Their subtle and refined aesthetic, although emerging from very different contexts, continues to delight this new generation of student designers. One cannot carry everywhere the corpse of one’s father Guillaume Apollinaire In the nineteenth century, a new world began to emerge, typified by urbanisation, industrialisation and revolution. Certainty was replaced by change and new visual forms were needed to express the new ways of seeing and experiencing. This extraordinary experimental period impacted on artists, architects, musicians and designers well into the middle of the twentieth century. In the early decades of the twentieth century, modernists embraced the rationality and dynamism of the age; others reacted against it. In art we had Cubism and abstraction; in graphics we saw the avant-garde work of El Lissitzky, the new typography of Jan Tschichold and the re-emergence of the sanserif as the primary ‘voice’ of the age. Gill, Futura, Univers and Helvetica offered subtle variants on this democratic and rational theme: the purpose of typography was proclaimed as:

clear communication in its most vivid and urgent form.

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Jan Tschichold

“

back to the

mod

by Gemma O’Hagan

vs.

MOD IS A POSTMODERN , sans serif typeface created by Bulgarian designer Svetoslav Simov. Simov worked at Clipart-design.com for three years, which he labels a ‘very good foundation and starting point for my career’ and now works in the ‘Idea’ creative agency in Sofia, Bulgaria dealing mainly with design fonts and logo brands. Practising more with conceptual designs rather than limiting himself with rules, Simov’s purpose is to create typefaces “which are distinguishing from everything else and have their own image”. MOD typeface, released in 2009, is a prime example of his fresh and innovative work. Simov’s design method can begin on paper, however, for this specific typeface he started digitally, already having the idea of a block uppercase font. The observer can imagine each letter beginning as a block colour square with Simov removing certain areas revealing a sharp cut-out view of the particular letter. During the reign of modernist design principles, typographers were interested in showing typefaces in their most pure form, the idea of “form j follows function”. By the mid 1960s a group of typographers, who felt too limited by these unshakeable principles, began a new wave in which the designer’s creativity figured prominently in each individual letter.‘Revolution might be too strong,’ says Davidson,‘but they certainly reacted against the hard and fast rules of modernism, respecting designers’ creative abilities.’ Due to MOD’s design approach the baseline is straight and powerful, with the exception of the dollar sign. Also, rather than being cut into the square the @ symbol has been cut out, producing an almost illegible form of the symbol being portrayed. Some may think MOD, at first glance, doesn’t appear to be attractive, particularly when it’s l just a black against a white background, and written in a sentence it can take time to distinguish the exact letters being used. However, do not underestiFontfabric 2010 http://fontfabric.com/mod-font/ mate what can be done with the space inside the letter itself. The typeface http://www.presidiacreati ve.com/26-must-have-free-fonts/ itself really shines when used as a mask on a photograph and has also http://www.1stwebdesigner.com/freebies/52-really-high-qualityfree-fonts-for-modern-and-cool-design/ been used successfully on a subtle text headline against a richly coloured backdrop. MOD, with its strict cut lines and sharp points, is self-assured and assertive offering the designer space within the font to enhance the silhouette and contours of the typeface.

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Bibliography : http://www.fonts.com/AboutFonts/Articles/TypeTradingCards/Novarese+Highlander.htm (accessed December 28th 2010) http://www.identifont.com/show?118 (accessed December 28th 2010)

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TYPOGRAPHY IS BEAUTIFUL, IT DOESN’T MAKE DEEP CUTS by Ruben Nascimento

CAN YOU PICTURE A BLADE?!

Picture a blade, like the ones we usually find on craft and utility knives, those super sharp ones that aren’t to be messed with or you might end up in A&E. With that sharp picture in mind and transcending it to a typographical situation we come across with the Rayzor Sharp typeface designed by Identikal. Adam Hayes and Nick Hayes designed this typeface in 2002, these two twins founded The Identikal Corporation in 1998. This multi awarded agency excels at designing typefaces, one of the Foundry’s most famous production was ‘Rayzor Sharp’, in this article we will discuss its intricate aspects and details.

Image from the Identikal Foundry catalogue, Release Five. Copyright by Andy Field. http://bit.ly/eTIoYQ

Rayzor Sharp has a special place in the postmodern world, its aspects and characteristics make me think of it as a perfect fit for this specific design style. Its many aspects that make it a good postmodern type. As you already know most postmodern typefaces have less readability, and this one is not an exception, with its straight, strong and abstract lines. It is available in two versions, one as an outline and other as a fill. There are italic versions for both variations, all letters highlight the typeface strength, because it gives the feeling that if we play with them or touch it, we will cut ourselves. Its shapes are very straight, strong and bold, you can say it is a mono-line font that is stronger in the fill version than in the outlined one. There is a great contrast in all letters and numbers, the circles inside each letter enhance that contrast. These circular areas are easily comparable to the areas where

the blades of craft knives break, a likely result when the blade is blunt and one needs to change it. The typeface letters can also be successfully applied in several other design fields, such as technological, industrial or manufacture. Its circular shapes are also reminiscent of electrical connection points when sketched by engineers. From all the letters available in this typeface I want to emphasize both lowercase x1 and v2 because in my opinion they are the letters with the biggest impact in the entire typeface family. Both letters could easily be used for branding due to their very unique and modern style; the x1 has a square in the center that provides great contrast and depth in relation to its arms. The v 2 also enhances its stem with strong contrast between its ascenders; the letter reminds me of a robot hand, like the one of Marvin the robot in â&#x20AC;&#x153;The Hitchhikerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Guide to the Galaxyâ&#x20AC;? from 1981.

You can find more work and typefaces by The Identikal Corporation at www.identikal.com.

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& a brief history of the slab serif.

www.fontriver.com/font/sketch_rockwell/

Tom Higgins

24 |

Rockwell was developed in 1933 at the Monotype foundryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s in-house design studio. It is a geometrically formed slab serif font which was influenced by Victorian slab serif fonts, in particular the one released in 1815 by London type founder Vincent Figgins. This font was called Antique and like Rockwell it had blunt and straight edged serifs. Also around this time William Caslon released a font named Egyptian â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a term which has since been used to describe all slab serif typefaces. Early slab serif fonts only contained uppercase letters and were used for display but very rapidly versions were created with both upper and lowercase forms. This made them usable in not only headings but in body text too. Rockwell itself came about because of the growing popularity of geometric sans serif fonts early in the twentieth century. Other geometric typefaces with a variety of serifs were designed to complement the geometric sans.

â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Slab serif is quite a new idea in typographic history terms.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Slab serif is quite a new idea in typographic history terms. The first were created to meet the need of communicating with bold lettering on posters. This need occurred because of the growth in the English economy in the early nineteenth century, and the related growth of advertising. The slab serif hasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t always been popular however, it had many ups and downs during its short life. The font itself, as mentioned before, is geometrically formed meaning that it includes perfect curves and is based on geometric shapes. The capital O is usually the giveaway of a geometric typeface. It is a serif font, slab serif to be specific, which means it has block like serifs which are blunt and angular. Rockwell is monoline with serifs which are the same width as the rest of the letter, giving a uniformity of colour on the page.

Due to its bold serifs and geometric forms Rockwell is mostly used in headings and, less frequently, www.davidthedesigner.com/rockwellposter/ in small blocks of text. It was used in the early 1990s for headings in the Guinness World Record books and The New York Times uses a typeface called Stymie Extra Bold which is similar in ways to Rockwell. Rockwell is particularly useful for posters and headlines due to its legibility and simplicity. This simplicity makes the font feel honest and trustworthy therefore it is a very good font for companies to use as a part of their corporate identity. However, the lack of detail and refinement can make it feel somewhat clumsy and less readable. The monoline stroke width also contributes to making the letterforms less beautiful, the lack of contrast in the strokes can give it a rather dull and boring appearance.

Tom Higgins

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Carved into stone

alatino

The original Palatino typeface was designed in 1948 by Harmann Zapf, subsequently punch cut in metal by August Rosenberger at D. Stempel AG type foundry in Frankfurt in 1950 am Main, and then adapted fot Linotype machine composition. The rationale behind this universally popular most admired type design was concerned with adapting type to printing processes in conjunction with their methods of manufacture The typefaces alphabet was designed after many careful studies together with August Rosenberger. Details such as the serifs were carefully scrutinized. In 1948 tests relating to offset printing were carried out. This process primaily related to the weight of the serifs.

Palatino Bitmap

by Maxwell Dean

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Italian Renaissance Alphabet, according to Sebastian Serlio.

Additionally he employed details such as open counters and carefully weighted strokes to opti-

mize legibility. This was required to overcome the limited and inferior paper available to foundries in post war Germany. The design blended the necessary crispness of line with classic Italian renaissance leterforms. As a result the typeface evokes the forms created through the use of a broad nib pen. Each formed letter appears as though it has been carved into stone masterfully, through the use of a hammer and chisel. The typefaceâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s classical proportions place it within the great heritage of Roman types, yet it has an unmistakably specific style of its own. Following his work on his original design Zapf travelled to italy to study roman inscriptional letters creating sketches from which he produced Palatino display variations named Michelangelo and Sustina.

Swash variants created for Palatino italic for example stem particularly from studies in the Laurentian library in Florence and Vatican library in Rome. As a result the expressive quality of certain letters such as the italic ampersand is energetic and lively compared to the family’s regular equivalent.The typefaces expressive qualities are that of a creative and clear shape. Typefaces designed during the Renaissance period tended to use smaller characters with longer ascenders and descenders. Palatino, in contrast, has a much larger x-height and shorter descenders (based on the German 1905 standard base line) which adds greatly to itslegibility and calligraphic grace. Broad details such as the distinctly inclined serifs exhibit strength and discipline. The original Palatino was intended to be a display face yet it has been used heavily for long text. Within his original he leaned to a calligraphic treatment of certain letters that is appealing to us as detail within the accepted rules of universal aesthetics but which interferes with readability.

Dreamworks typography

This includes the unenclosed bows within the P and R , the leaning tops of X and Y reminiscent of quill drawn letters and contrast between the straight and distinctly slanted serifs of ‘m’, ‘n’ and ‘h’ - which exhibit a certain flowing aesthetic detail. Including its creation within five different media (Linotype composing machine, foundry metal, phototype film, transfer sheets, and digital) it has been recreated for every every digital format ever conceived, including Truetyp , Type 1,nd countless proprietary outline and bitmap formats and now comes standard with the Apple Macintosh OS as a core post script font.

Queens University emblem

Lawson, A. (2010) Anatomy of a typeface www.Typ ofile.com www.fontshop.com www.Linotype.com www.Paulmitcheldesign.ca

In 1999, Zapf redesigned Palatino for Linotype and Microsoft, called Palatino Linotype. This revised family incorporated expanded Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic character sets. The Palatino Nova type family was carefully drawn in digital format by Akira Kobayashi, Type Director at Linotype in 2005. This revised family incorporated expanded Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic character sets. Palatino Sans and Sans Informal were released in 2006 The version we see everywhere today is a more rigid and crisp interpretation tailored to the newer technologies but still exhibits the original charm - and as, such, the Palatino family is popular among professional graphic designers and amateurs alike. As an old style typeface it is used within a classical context by reputable institutions steeped in history and tradition.

the passion of

Perpetua

R s

PERPETUA typeface is a classic font that was slow to develop and produce, but

which has lived up to its name as a design of quality and utility. Perpetua Typeface is today considered a staple of graphic communication. It was designed by English sculptor, typeface designer, stonecutter and printmaker Eric Gill, and bears his distinct personality.The formal impression this typeface lends to text is mainly due to its small, diagonal serifs and its medieval-style numbers.

eric gill

perpetua

ITALIC

These are based on the designs of old stone engravings. Eric Gill began working on Perpetua in 1925, at the request of the typographical advisor to Monotype, Stanley Morrison; who sought Eric Gill’s talent to design a new typeface for the foundry. Morrison wanted to develop new, original designs, starting with a book face patterned after epigraphic, rather than calligraphic, letters. The typeface was finally issued in 1929 as Monotype Series 239. Perpetua is a roman typeface and can be grouped with transitional typefaces based on its characteristics such as high stroke contrast and bracketed serifs. The typeface has a chiseled quality, which relates to Gill’s stonecutting and sculpting skills; it is a dignified, somewhat cold face that carries a feeling of authority. In small sizes, Perpetua appears distinguished and classic, but not necessarily universally acceptable, however, in a large size, it has a noble, monumental appearance, and the capitals are admired for display work.

A Review of this Exquisite Typeface, by

Jessica Cleeve

The bold style of this particular typeface has a rounder feel to it, allowing the face to have a softer approach and friendlier appearance, the fatter letters seem to diminish the harsher serifs and lines of the regular typeface, making it look more curvaceous and pleasant. Alongside Perpetua are two companion italic faces, Perpetua Felicity and Perpetua Italic. Felicity typeface, which was a sloped roman, met with great criticism from Monotype management. They declared it a “worthless” typeface, which caused Perpetua’s release to be halted until Eric Gill came up with a more acceptable italic version, “Perpetua Italic”.Tell tale signs of the Felicity typeface are, the absence of the serif at the baseline of the lower case “d” and a straight tale on the lowercase “y”. In the Italic font, the “D”, “J” and “R” are cursive, others are inclined monumental characters, but nevertheless the typeface has an original and happy harmony. Overall Felicity typeface is less sloped than Perpetua Italic. There have been several books printed and set in Perpetua; the first book the typeface was used in was “The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity”, written by Walter H. Shewring, therefore the roman was called Perpetua and the Italic, Felicity, which of course was then dropped for Perpetua Italic. Then later, “Art Nonsense and Other Essays” authored by Eric Gill himself. In conclusion, Perpetua is a beautiful and timeless design, quite unlike any that have preceded it. It was one of the first original designs to emerge from the Monotype Drawing Office, and has become one of the most used typefaces for fine book typography – a true Monotype masterwork.

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AN INSIGHT TO

Schiller Antiqua This seemingly conservative serif typeface hides many hidden subtleties of form that act to intrigue and allure the viewer to look deeper. The word â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;antiquaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; was used in early 20th century Germany to refer to all serif-based typefaces of the time. Perhaps the most noticeable aspect of the typeface at first are the serifs of the letters. Being not aligned to a single direction as commonly seen they are instead put on diagonals, serving to enhance contrast and interest in the letterforms. The angles used are unique to each letterform and some examples of the various differences are shown on the left. by

Ch r is Porter

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuv w xyz

H T T P : / / W W W. A S C E N D E R F O N T S . C O M / F O N T / SCHILLER-ANTIQUA-MEDIUM.ASPX

‘e’- rather than just continuing the semicircular form a round lip can be seen this, along with the angle cut into the bowl, work to give this typeface its quirkiness. Designed by Steve Jackaman, the typeface has a Germanic quality to it; especially noticeable when using the extra bold of the family. As well as the name of this fam ily it can also be seen in the detailing. The diagonal dots of the characters ‘i’ and ‘j’ and the thick and thin strokes suggesting blackletter forms. The joining and form of the capital ‘W’appears to made of two ‘V’ forms, this creates a larger dip in which the white space fills. This alongside the high contrast strokes creates an overall attractive character. A playfulness and motion are suggested within the ‘K’. Here Jackaman substitutes a straight down stroke, as

expected, to a curved and slender line. The thick thin stroke then dips below the baseline furthering the fluid motion. White space is again used in the letter ‘P’. Here the counter is left in space open at the base where the forms don’t meet. Once again the use of slight angles and high contrast have been exploited to make the letterform aesthetically interesting. The thick thins in the forms also play an important role in keeping the forms elegant and almost Art Nouveau at times. The decorative serifs serve to break the monotony that the large x-heights may bring about. In conclusion the strokes and attractive detailing have been used well in this typeface to create an elegant and quirky creation.

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c t ke

Sout

ketched

By Bethany Kelsall

Lukas Bischoff designed the sketch block typeface in 2009 as a hand-sketched headline font. He created this typeface completely by hand and then afterwards digitized the typeface. The sketch block typeface makes a perfect font when you want to create something with a handmade character look. It gives a personal feel in the same way that â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;script fontsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; do giving the impression someone has actually written the piece by hand.

The Sketch Block typeface is made up of some very simple shaped letter forms but filled with beautiful hand drawn hatching giving the shapes of the letterforms real character and energy. This typeface has real character it is very happy and easy going, with strong bold shapes to the letterforms. The simple roman typeface with slab serifs on some of the letterforms creates a chunky but cheery typeface. This typeface family contains a light and bold weight version and both the Light and Bold versions work perfectly together. Sketch Block typeface has resemblances to the typeface Rockwell, showing the same block shapes used for the slab serifs.

ABCDE

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d e ch hkij The bold version of this typeface is very strong and eye-catching yet still has a happy and personal feel to it. The chunky feel to this version of the typeface works really well, especially when combined with the slab serifs. It’s really interesting the way that not all of the edges are straight. It has a handwritten and quirky feel as shown on the letter ‘t’ (lower case) the top of the‘t’ isn’t finished with a straight flat top it is at an angle. This angle on the‘t’ is the same in both bold and light versions. The light version of the sketch block typeface, is light and thin showing a happy character yet with a much softer tone and not as noticeable as the bold version. The light version would be great used at a smaller size for little sections of type rather than the bold. It is harder to see the detail and added character of the hatching markings in the light, which makes it less sketchy when compared with the bold. In the bold you can easily see all the markings and imperfections between each character.

Photograph of UWIC ‘wow’ leaflet

Sketch block typeface has been used very successfully in the University of Wales Institute Cardiff’s Fresher’s welcome leaflet, being used for headings, giving the ‘wow’ event an eye-catching heading yet with a personal touch to it. This strong bold and personal typeface is eyecatching and perfect for headings.

www.new.myfonts.com/fonts/artill-typs/sketch-block/ (accessed 22/01/11) www.dafont.com/sketch-block.font (accessed 22/01/11)

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Bre

aK n

gTRAD

ITION

WORLD ORDER Following two world wars (1914-18 and 1939-45), human affairs looked very different. A gradual loss of faith in ‘progress’, possibilities and creative certainty occurred. Rationality, science, technology and grand ideological strategies made little sense to many younger artists, musicians and designers in the face of late colonialism, totalitarianism and the horrors of those two world wars. The German critical theorist Theodor Adorno asked: ‘how can we continue to make poetry after Auschwitz?’ Plurality, diversity and scepticism now reigned. As a consequence, art, music, architecture and design took on very different agendas as different, fragmented voices strove to be heard. In the 1960s a major fissure appeared with the ornamented explosion of psychedelia and the start of typographic experimentation, particularly within display fonts. The more aggressive punk movement which took over brought a new urban amateurism to letterform design, an aesthetic approach which was taken up and amplified by the digital experimentation of Cranbrook and postmodernity. Deconstruction, sampling, hybridity and hand-production encouraged a flood of new fonts which broke all the rules and turned tradition on its head. As Barry Deck suggested, this was the era of ‘imperfect type for an imperfect world’. Legibility, simplicity and communication were no longer the aims of the typographer who sought only to express themselves and their world view.

“

the new

Ruth Dineen

imper[ect type for an imperfect world

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review of Soraya by Rosie Feltwell

typeface which jumped out to me, with its very unique, engaging ability is the typeface named â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Sorayaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, created by Jakob Nylund, who is the founder and type designer of Just-My-Type. Soraya has beautiful elongating strokes, which are emphasized with the strong contrast of the alternating weights of the strokes of each letter.

BAG

This contrast however remains balanced, and the thin strokes become very elegant and supportive. The fine geometric lines, which are used in the majority of the letterforms, enhance the curvature of the letterforms. The typeface is available online, however only in an Illustrator format, main focus is designers.

The typeface is purely designed in Upper case to make a creative statement, some of the letterforms have half serifs and some have sans serifs. This alternation holds your attention and you are content with exploring each intricate detail of each singular letterform.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;

With the repeated fine lines, you get the impression that the letterforms have almost been stationary for a long time; gradually eroding away over time, however frsgments remain, leaving a statement.

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The letterforms have a consistent geometric shape to them, however some shapes are very angular for example the V. However with the way the singular lines are used to fill the negative space within the letterform, the shading adds a sense of movement and creates a curvature in the process. This typeface is visually aesthetically pleasing to the eye, which becomes very engaging, with a mechanical precision to the forms; as well as a versatile expressive quality of friendliness and trendy.

Soraya is a very enriched typeface, which is visually very attractive, however it is also quite versatile in the way that this typeface can be used. cargocollective.com/formconspiracy#3400/soraya

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TRAJAN PRO Trajan Pro is a version of Trajan, an old style serif typeface designed in 1989 by Carol Twombly for Adobe. The design is based on the letterforms of Roman square capitals, as used for the inscription at the base of Trajan’s Column from which the typeface takes its name. The column was completed in 113 AD and the lettered inscription is often regarded as the finest example of the imperial Roman alphabet. Trajan’s Column was erected by the senate and people of Rome as a memorial to the Emperor Traianus and his victory in the Dacian Wars.

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BY JENNIE METCALFE

It has been used o Carol went on to become one of the five students to get master’s degrees in type design from Charles Bigelow

movie posters, suc

The Mummy, Geis

When analysing w

chose Trajan Pro w

Roman handwriting was very

at Stanford. She worked for Adobe

different from Roman monumental

Systems from 1988-99, producing

lettering and was a capitals-only

many well-known typefaces, includ-

letterform (miniscules were invented

ing Lithos, Trajan, and Adobe Caslon.

centuries later although the Romans

She retired from type design and left

were the first to put serifs on their

Adobe in 1999. When Carol Twombly

Critics may claim

letters. Similarly, Adobe’s Trajan is an

designed Trajan Pro for Adobe, little

of Trajan Pro und

all caps alphabet with small capitals

did she know that it would be such

personality. Howe

a huge success in movie marketing,

strength to it, mak

logos, posters and websites.

timeless and class

taking the place of the lowercase glyphs. The creator of Trajan Pro, Carol Twombly studied architecture

at the Rhode Island School of Design.

its form. It is no do

font, portrayed ma

strong ascenders a

giving a bold, almo

back to its inscrip

font is based on an

and retains its con

used, Trajan Pro s

impression that, ju

first inscribed ont

column, it is maki merits are epic. A

choose Trajan Pro

qualities. One of t

letterforms from t

the ‘Q’ It Is the mo

letterform and sta

rigid than its othe

mainly due to its s

on many famous

ch as The Titanic,

sha and Derailed.

why their designers

we have to look at

oubt a confident

ainly through the

and abrupt serifs,

ost tough feel. the simplicity

dermines its

ever it brings

king it epic,

sic, which relates

ption origins. The

ncient lettering

ntext. When

still gives the

The aesthetics of the design are

The viewer is first drawn to the

beautiful, starting from a slim,

horizontal, fragile serifs at the top of

spacious circle, full of elegance due

the letterform which are parallel to

to its high contrast. The circle grows

the other letterforms serifs. We are

thinner at the point of the tail which

next drawn down the thick weighted

flows from it long and sophisticated.

ascender which leads to the stylistic,

It relates to the rest of the alphabet

slimmer tail of the ‘J’. Although the

with repetition of the thicknesses

tail of the ‘j’ is soft on the eye due

of its contrast and weight but it is

to its light weight it still possesses a

distinctive because of its tail as it is

rigid slant which is in keeping with

easy on the eye compared to the rigid

the overall aesthetics of the alphabet.

other serifs of the other letterforms. Another inspiring letterform is the ‘J’ from Trajan Pro. Similarly to the ‘Q’ it possesses softer expressive qualities than the rest of the letterforms It works particularly well because it is narrow and the path of the eye is clear.

ust as when it was

to the Emperor’s

ing history; its designer would

o to portray these

the most inspiring

the alphabet is

ost expressive

ands out as less

er family members

stylish long tail.

Bibliography http://wanabee.wordpress. com/2008/07/12/mad-love-for-trajan-pro/ http://store1.adobe.com/cfusion/ store/html/index.cfm?store=OLS-

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Erik Fagerman explores and analyze the friendly, on-screen and microsoft developed typeface called Trebuchet MS.

by Erik Fagerman

Trebuchet MS is sans-serif typeface with humanist influences. Microsoft co-worker (at the time) Vincent Connare developed Trebuchet as a readable on-screen font in 1996. Vincent wanted to make a screen-friendly typeface that was perfectly readable however small or large you made it. He started the project the same way his co-worker Matthew Carter did during the making of the typeface Verdana, in which Vincent was involved. He began by making bitmaps at low screen sizes and tweaked them until he was happy

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with the result in low resolution. Then he scaled up and continued to tweak the font until perfection. Vincent believed that a large x-height and open rounded features felt less harsh and more friendly. For a typeface to work on screen and in this case, specifically online, functionality demands a friendly feel as well as a readable typeface that works on the full spectrum of screens and various settings.

Compared to other on-screen typefaces like Georgia and Verdana, Trebuchet feels more direct, sharp, friendly and versatile. Verdana is more expanded than Trebuchet and has less depth, it feels bland in comparison. Georgia is Verdanaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s on screen serif companion and it feels more classy and traditional than Trebuchet. However, Georgia is not as readable as Trebuchet & Verdana when you get down to low resolution and for type sizes under 8pt.

Trebuchet MS is very low contrast typeface with subtle variants of stroke width which at first glance give it a monoline appearance.

What makes Trebuchet unique are the little details in the typeface. At first it feels like any standard sans-serif typeface but when you take a closer look you find little gems hidden in this typeface, like the little curl on the lowercase ‘l’ and the half slab on the top left of both the ‘i’ and ‘j’¹. The open ‘g’ is another nice feature that oozes character and playfulness. This aspect goes further within Trebuchet italic. The descenders stretch further down than in the regular Trebuchet, in particular the ‘f’, which in a beautiful, almost handwritten way continues downwards and then curves slightly to the left. The letter ‘a’² changes completely in italic, from being more old-fashioned/ classical form to a more modern and up to date character. Overall the Trebuchet in italic gives a sober and honest feel.

IMPORTANT MESSAGE

lig

Trebuchet bold works well to inform short important messages

aa 2

Vincent Connare

You take it seriously. Trebuchet in bold is very much like the regular version in basic form, and works very well. It feels more informative and direct but, Due to its weight it loses some of the fine detail that Trebuchet regular has. Trebuchet is an attractive font that does its job. It works especially well online and on screens as was intended, yet retains a distinct and friendly personality.

Bibliography: http://www.microsoft.com/typography/web/fonts/trebuche/default.htm http://www.microsoft.com/typography/fonts/family.aspx?FID=4 http://www.microsoft.com/typography/Fonts/family.aspx?FID=2 http://www.connare.com/

BORN FROM EXPERIMENTATION by

Chris Porter

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The typeface I I have chosen is Tribbon. This is a ver y unique typeface, rather than a family it is made of three isolated font files that layer upon each other to make the entirety. Though functional individually I will be discussing the complete form, when all three are put together. Designed by UK graphic designer Dominic Le-Hair it started life as an experiment loosely based on Myriad Pro Black. The re-working of material and the use of layers to create the forms are themes well known in post-modernist design and can be seen in the work of Le-Hairâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s influences such as Craig Ward. Effective both used in colour and black and white, the strength and diversity of this typeface can be seen best when viewed as a whole. The separate layers give a strong depth and dimension to the letterforms. Its use of shadow to create the depth is regulated and ordered, using no lines that arenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t necessar y. These viewed alone but conjuring imager y similar to textile printing.

The sharp angles and clean crisp edges make the cur ves intriguing and the initial simplicity of this typeface lost because of the complexity. It is worth noting that the inspiration of this typeface came from, as the name suggests, ribbon- yet the cur ves seen in these forms act in a way that the material ribbon could not. Some letterforms feel as if coiled around objects with an almost architectural style. The full caps and condensed letterforms also conveying a feeling of attention and superiority.

This typeface is one that can be used in both ver y subtle and bold designs- in one occasion it can be ver y ambiguous, floating in a sea of black, only reflections able to slice the surface. When condensed it can form a powerful visual impact becoming striking and pushing itself of the page. My personal favourite letterform is the N. I think the linear differences in cross-hatching and the way the crossbar is cut off before it meets the stroke completely makes it an understated interesting form.

â&#x20AC;&#x153;SOME LETTERFORMS LOOK AS IF COILED AROUND UNSEEN OBJECTS IN AN ALMOST ARCHITECTURAL DESIGNâ&#x20AC;? HTTP://WWW.BEHANCE.NET/GALLERY/RIBBON-ALPHABET/248759 HTTP://TINYURL.COM/Y8NVHBN

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JUST FOR

VTKS SHOW

Reviewed by Wayne Morrish

The VTKS Show typeface was designed by Douglas Vitkauskas and was initially released July 4th 2009.

The design work of Douglas Vitkauskas’ portfolio site includes some great designs including print logo and web work. His impressive collection of typefaces has much to offer. There are some really usable type faces in his collection, so I grabbed a few of my favorites and filed them away for future use. His designed typefaces are always acknowledged with a trademark ‘VTKS’ at the start of their names, an abbreviation of the designer's surname.

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t g

The messy graffiti like style is consistent through VTKS Show’s whole alphabet and in particular has great abstract forms, giving the typeface postmodernist connotations. Different weights are used throughout the letter forms and are even exaggerated in some cases, giving a high contrast appearance between widths and x-heights. The free-flowing curves and upright straights add complexity to the aesthetic qualities which enticed me to explore them more. The low descending form of the ‘F’ and the high ascending form of the capital ‘S’ intrigued me even more down to the irregularity among the rest of the forms.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

as AS The uppercase and lowercase alphabets hardly differ.

Only the ‘A’ and ‘S’ change in their uppercase formats.

www.dafont.com

IS A FONT DESIGNED BY TOM KOLTER, a designer and screen print/embroidery shop owner from America. The majority of his typefaces have a ‘wild west’ appearance about them, with their names reflecting this quality - Honest Merchant, Snakebite Saloon, Tuscan Flies and Whisky Town itself. Whisky Town has three variations; Sober, Drunk and Buzzed, all complete with punctuation. This article will focus on Sober, a less cartoony font with an aesthetically pleasing humanist quality.

Wri tt

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Mia T

e iv

Whisky Town is categorized as a Slab Serif typeface and features little contrast in stroke width. The up and down strokes are dense and as a whole, the alphabet features few curved lines. Moreover, the typeface is only available in capital letters. The aesthetics of Whisky Town ensure that it is most definitely a masculine font – somewhat aggressive looking and forthright in personality. The typeface has a very strong personality. It has a postmodern

unconventionality and is very contemporary looking, broken up with an exaggerated, uneven baseline. It works superbly as a display face with its eye-catching form coupled with good legibility. Slab Serifs originate from the Victorian period, and were designed to suit the printing press technology of the time. Modern day slab serif fonts include ‘Rockwell’ (which features blunt and angular serifs) and ‘Courier’ (which features rounded serifs). Whisky Town is an interesting, dynamic new typeface that can be used for many purposes within the contemporary, postmodern spectrum. What’s more, at present the font is free for personal use;

Bibliography www.ghostsofbigfoot.com (accessed Jan ‘11)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 31 42 53 64

A SHEEPA SHEEP IN WOL IN CLOTHING This

is a relatively unknown font, by an unknown American typographer Kimberly Geswein. She has been creating her own fonts since 2006. This grungy font is raw and unrefined. Geswein has been publicizing her fonts for free from her website, www.kimberlygeswein.com and it is immediately made clear that Geswein’s inspirations are from her family and her children. They are a strong presence in You Are Loved as well as in her other fonts, as her catch phrase is ‘fonts with heart’ only strengthens it. You Are Loved is a bold display font with strong masculine properties. It demands attention, where

“

you 54 |

an uneven baseline reveals the rough personality

”

You Are Loved is a font that contradicts its name on the surface, as the font appears to be hard, and cold. There is a subtle variation from thick to thin ‘old style’ in the compressed font but not enough to take away from the overwhelming powerful argument. This font has an abnormally high x-height and this is, combined with very short ascenders and descenders. Normally this would create a friendly atmosphere but when combined with the compressed style, it becomes threatening and mean.

ARE loved You are loved

is a rebellious font, with 90 degree edges; the rawness is magnetic. You Are Loved could be described as a trash font, where there are textual scratches divide the black blocks. Like scratch marks, they create a high contract against the solid blocks and highlight interest and detail.

http://www.dafont.com/you-are-loved.font http://www.kimberlygeswein.com/

VES’ WOLVES’CLOTHING

4 75 86 97 08 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 12345678901234567890123456789012345678901234567890 by Rebecca Howard This compressed font gives the impression of danger, and the uneven baseline gives the impression of instability. These block letters look like they could have been created from stamps, as the unique scratch marks conveys the imperfection of the human hand. I have no doubt that this was an intentional effect achieved through a computer program that is very successful. The font itself has a puzzling title. This is part of what drew me to You Are Loved, to investigate why this could be such a sensitive title. After a thorough analysis, I feel that the title is a comment about the raw qualities of the font, a reassuring comment to the font itself because of its harsh corners and block lettering. I think the focus does shift to the scratches, and the damaged quality to the font that in turn could be combination to become

“

” !@#$%^&*()

A gentle giant

This is strengthened by understanding the background of the font, the author and her personal inspirations. I feel the font is more successful in uppercase because it is such a heavy font and when it is in lowercase it feels unbalanced. Personally I feel like I wouldn’t use this font in the lowercase, which wouldn’t matter because it is a display face to begin with.

I feel that this font has emotional layers that have created ambiguity, and it is a font that commands a second look. This is a very important trait in a font because it draws the attention of the reader back to the title, which is often where the important information is.

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