Typeface

TYPEFACE Background:

I have always been interested in the style or letterforms used in graphic novels and comic books.

This breif is a personal investigation into this style and my own handwriting.

Consise Brief:

Create a usable typeface, based on my own handwriting and inspired by graphic novels.

Brief:

The focus of this brief is one of investigation into my own handwriting; now I construct letters and write sentences. The aim is to build a working typeface in the style of the handwritten type found in graphic novels and comic books. To reach this aim an investigation to find examples of this style of typography will be undertaken as well as one into understanding the context in which this type is made.

Concept:

I want to create a simple typeface that works as both body copy for a graphic novels storyline as well as working on a larger scale, such as a title, or banner for the publication. My concept is to use my own handwriting, which is close to the style found in some graphic novels, and illustrate it into a refined digital format. A single weight of the hand drawn typeface can then be presented in a type specimen book.

Deliverables: Typeface Type Specimen

Tone of Voice:

Post-Modern, Comic book.

List of Influences:

Sin City, Frank Miller Maus, Art Spiegleman David Boring, Daniel Clowes

TYPEFACE Research and Inspiration:

Whilst working on the typeface I read stories from three graphic novels which rely on a handrawn-style typeface. Whilst reading these I also scaned many interesting instances of use of type to blow up digitally to use as inspiration and as a guide to creating my own letter-forms. The three novels were Sin City by Frank Miller, Maus by Art Spiegleman and David Boring by Daniel Clowes.

Sin City:

What is intersting about Sin City is the different styles that type appears in, how Frank draws letterforms and how they change in different situations.

Frank Millers style is fairly heavy and masculine, a reflection on his style of storytelling really. Words are written phonetically, any words that the speaker is exaggerating are in turn exaggerated on the page. This also applies for the way that speech-boxes are drawn and the positioning of words within them, and the way that noises and other environmental sounds are illustrated on the page.

Maus:

Maus is a more heartfelt story of Spiegelmans fathers experience in Poland during the war. Again all of the type appears to be hand-drawn, and as the story progresses and the characters grow up the type becomes heavier. When Spiegelman is recalling his own childhood the story is written in a more childish lower-case, when spoken words become exaggerated in the story they become bolder on the page to reflect the tone of voice the characters are using. Grammar is also punctuated with glyphs to represent the accents and language people use. The impression I get from the Maus is that type is a very fluid and malleable thing, much like language itself.

David Boring:

The type in this novel is far more standardised, and could have been typed up digitally from a specialised font much like the one on this project. It is also a lot lighter in weight, possibly because of the larger amount of writing found in this novel. Both of these things where made as a conscious decision to make the novel more readable. Unlike the other two graphic novels I have looked at, David Boring has very little stylised type. The language of most of the characters appears to be flatter and more mundane. This is a reflection on the story that is much more subdued, about everyday American life.

TYPEFACE Development:

I began this project by writing thousands of repetitions of characters down on a page. I then took a selection of intersting examples of each letterform and scanned in the most interesting shapes for each character individually. I also matched the type I was selecting to two typefaces that would be a guide; one inspired by Friday 13 called ‘Friday 13’ and that other is Mistral.

What I found interesting during this process is the way my handwriting had developed; I write mostly in uppercase by hand, and it is evident here that this has changed the way I write as I have become faster and faster at it. For examplee most letters are constructed with one or two lines/ strokes maximum resulting in some unique letterforms that I wanted this typeface to utilise as it grew. after slecting the most suitable example of each letterform each shape was sketched out with the pen tool to get the right line widths whilst retaining the characters personality. The next stage is to resize everything to make sure the characters work as a set instead of just as individually cut characters. I also added some texture to the edge off the shapes to create a graphic pen style for the overall set.

TYPEFACE Character Set Evaluation:

The final set of characters contains a short list of letters, numbers and glyphs compaired to many typefaces, however this was a short brief and an investigation into a style of typefaces which usually contain olny one wieght and a small set of characters.

I’m not sure if I like or dislike this work for the following reasons; I understand the brief and I do believe that I have completed what I set out to achieve given the time frame, however stylistically I don’t think this has any role outside of what it has been designed to do. Essentially I think that this has been an interesting experiment into how I draw and construct characters on a page, as well as an interesting look into typefaces within graphic novels and comic books.

On a more positive note, I am pleased with the way that the typeface works in the right context. Had I spent more time on this project I would have liked to develop the characters in a completely different way, going into more depth, and taking what I have learnt from the construction of characters in my own handwriting and applying that to a Gothic sans-serif typeface. However, this would have been a much more substantial undertaking.

TYPEFACE Type Specimen:

To contextualise the final edition of the Prototype typeface for graphic novels I made a type specimen.

This is a short A5 format booklet that lays out the type in a simple way and has a short novel in a graphic novel style printed in the back. The perpose of this is so the typeface has a chance to be used in context. I have printed and bound the booklet, photos of which are displayed here. This has made a useful addition to the project, most importantly, making sure that the typeface is used in a space which rationalises its style and the design choices I have made in its development.