CDF Project 3
09/24/2020:
Introduction
This project’s challenge is to create an informational poster for a typeface using the concepts learned thus far in the class (Gestalt principles, design principles, etc…) along with a few new ones such as spacing and texture. I have been assigned Avenir.
Exercise 1
I chose the word “melancholy”.
In order, they are:
- Roman D: a basic font generally used to write English text when typing in Chinese. Its simplicity lends it a certain detachment, or maybe wistfulness, that I feel is appropriate for the word. I think for these reasons, it conveys the meaning of the word more strongly.
- Perpetua: I chose this because the regularity of the letters is appealing; the spacing is very even, and the changing line weight is smooth and understated. The font is also not too bold. On the other hand, I’m not sure that this font is distinct enough to really say anything about the meaning of any word.
- Commercial Script BT: melancholy is one of those words that has an almost romantic vibe; it’s an emotion suited for heroines in period pieces. That’s why I experimented with some scripts. I think this font does help to reinforce the feeling of the word, but would probably be more suitable if it were less bold.
- French Script MT: I chose this one because its delicacy and the fact that it’s a script seemed suitable. However, looking at it in comparison to the other typefaces, its loops make it seem almost cute. I don’t think this font reinforces the meaning of the word.
- Lucida Bright: once again, I chose this font because it’s a little understated. It has more seriousness than the other fonts on this page, but I’m wondering if it’s wandering too far into “important business document” territory. Still, I think it emphasizes the word’s meaning.
History of Avenir
- Released in 1988 by Linotype
- Designed by Adrian Frutiger
- From Linotype.com: Frutiger said he felt an obligation to design a linear sans in the tradition of Erbar and Futura, but to also make use of the experience and stylistic developments of the twentieth century. The word Avenir means ‘future’ in French and hints that the typeface owes some of its interpretation to Futura. But unlike Futura, Avenir is not purely geometric; it has vertical strokes that are thicker than the horizontals, an “”o”” that is not a perfect circle, and shortened ascenders. These nuances aid in legibility and give Avenir a harmonious and sensible appearance for both texts and headlines.
- Character map from Fontsner:
- Tagline: “A modern answer to Futura.”
Initial Sketches
09/28/2020:
Exercise 3
The purpose of this exercise is to explore different ways to organize text to improve legibility.
In both cases, I opted to visually prioritize and organize according to the date; this made logical sense to me because the date is the first piece of information given about each session and people in the USA are generally used to reading from top to bottom. The instructions were a little unclear; in the first case, I indented specific information about each event twice, so there are 3 layers of hierarchy. In the second, I kept everything at 1 or 2 indentations. I’d say that the first is definitely more effective, which makes sense given that there are a few types of information present here (topic, speaker, date vs. location and organizer). In the second case, I had to prioritize information unevenly or risk letting all the information regarding the address bleed into the topic of the last lecture in the series.
For this variation of the exercise, which allowed me to use line spacing and felt much more natural, I was able to group similar information. I split the poster information into organization, specific event info, and general location. I was also able to highlight free admission, which is an important draw for college students, who tend to be more financially insecure.
In this variation, in addition to grouping by specific talk information, I also double-spaced the general information to visually highlight dates, speakers, and topics, given that these are the most relevant factors to enticing passerby into attending the event. However, this is a little harder to read, and I couldn’t highlight free admission. I’ll tentatively call Option 1 more effective on its own, but I bet if I introduced more variables (size, text weight), this composition could do a better job.
In Option 1, I have opted to alternate between bold and roman weight to emphasize distinct pieces of information. Given my ability to group text in this fashion, I opted to highlight the topics instead of the dates this time, since it would still be clear what day each occurred and the topics are the most likely aspect to draw someone in.
In this version, I opted to separate the text between specific and more general information; the ratio is still about 50/50, so it wouldn’t have mattered which I chose to use as emphasis. I had to revert to organizing by date, but you can still find the topic very quickly and easily without sifting through the more general information, which wouldn’t be relevant until you’ve decided to go. For this reason, I believe this variation is more effective.
This set of parameters ended up working similarly to how I used alternating bold and Roman text to group information, but the spacing is faster to read and more intuitive; I’m not sure about anyone else, but the voice in my head tends to read bold differently.
I tried emphasizing by topic again, and tested to see if double spacing the general information would draw the eye towards the more specific event information, which is more likely to draw you in. To some extent, it worked; my eye is drawn to the topics, and I can easily infer the date and speaker based on the visual grouping. But man, it looks really ugly and kind of distracting; if I saw this, I guess I’d remember the poster, but not in a positive light. For that reason, I’ll say that Option 1 was more effective.
Digital Drafts of the Poster
Version 1:
An early draft of the colors before tweaking:
The above color scheme was too generic; the dove gray I had chosen because it seemed charming seemed, suddenly, very dull. I tried making the text white, then darkened the background to improve contrast.
My intention behind this design is to have the blocks of text slowly spread out as the poster proceeds downward; legibility is, of course, the most important factor to me, so all text aside from the long paragraph about the history of the font is very clear and printed large. I do like having the background as the entire character set, albeit faded.
I began to feel that the off-center section featuring the date and designer felt out of place. I moved it to center and iterated through a couple more layouts, playing with hierarchy.
After these experiments, I find myself torn between the left- and rightmost options. The left strikes me as more aesthetically pleasing, but the way the text reads on the right is better and puts maximal emphasis on the title of the font, which is my intention.
Version 2:
My first take was just hideous.
I wanted to play with the shapes of the date and designer text block with the history block together, but I placed them too close together and left the colors too warm and saturated. Looks like someone spilled grape juice on a bowling alley carpet.
I started by moving the center two blocks aside, then started thinking about interesting ways to improve the visual hierarchy. The character list is the least important component to me; no one is going to study every single letter, number, or punctuation mark. So I dropped the contrast compared to the background. It still didn’t seem to “flow” smoothly between colors, so I made the two center blocks purple to make it into a gradient. I think it’s pretty, and it’s effective, but I wish it were more striking. I wonder if I can combine elements of versions 1 and 2 to make something more appealing.
09/29/2020:
After receiving critique from Anna and Ji, I’ve made these edits:
I increased the size of the title, moved most of the text downward, and disabled hyphenations.
Lightened text to improve contrast.
Jiyoung suggested that I revert version 2 to black and white, then see how I can adjust the hierarchy in that form. This gave rise to version 3.
10/01/2020:
(Updating a little bit after the fact!)
We had a group critique that day. I found it very helpful — I realized the extent to which I could really play with shapes. However, during that meeting, I only really had time to enact the change suggested that I don’t actually need every single character, including Greek and Russian ones, for the poster.
10/06/2020:
I had a busy weekend, so I only really sat down to work on this while waiting for my turn to get instructor critique. Yikes! I think I’ve been trying too hard to go minimalist when it’s just…not my thing at all. I care about legibility and fun. Minimalism would have me making this text tiny and with no fun colors. I thought back to all the interesting ideas I saw from my classmates, and decided to play with shapes and how to get all the text boxes to fit together more neatly.
This idea fell back on black and white, as per Jiyoung and Anna’s advice, but I decided to split the paragraph to make it more legible. It kind of looks like a page from a poetry book, which I don’t hate, but I feel it doesn’t really suit this typeface. So I kept pushing.
I settled on this version of the draft. The rhythm of the composition in a tiled square, of sorts, is very satisfying to me. I know that sideways text should be used sparingly for legibility, but I figure it’s so big, it’s harder not to read, anyways.
I figured out that what I disliked about the colored draft was the negative space. It just didn’t serve a purpose. So, likewise, I tweaked the positioning of the text for the purple draft as well.
I’m very attached to the colors in this one. I think they’re pretty. I’m not really sure what to do with the empty space at the top and bottom; I think if I made everything longer vertically, I might lose some legibility. I guess I’ll ask for help. This kind of feels like Tetris now. That’s probably a bad thing.
10/8/2020:
Made some tweaks in response to instructor criticism to prepare for group critique!
Resolved some spacing issues on the colored composition and moved the tagline to the top. Revised the spacing and sizing of the vertical letters on the black and white composition.
10/13/2020:
During group critique, I got notes from my classmates that the black and white poster simply wasn’t as legible or interesting to look at as the colored one, so I’ve settled on that as my final design. My instructors, Anna and Ji, also pointed out some spots that could be cleaned up a little more with regards to the rag and the spacing could be adjusted, so I did that as well.
I’ve also gotten some conflicting critique — my classmates praised my color choices, but Anna found the black and white much cleaner and asked for a black and white version of the purple poster (confusing, I know!).
Tentatively, I’m settling on the black and white version, since in a real-life situation, it’s more likely I’d be designing for a specific client (Anna, who grades my work) rather than the general public. Hence, I am prioritizing her preference over my classmates’.
Post-critique:
Anna suggested I decrease the leading in the informational paragraph to help it stand apart from the rest of the content, and to align it with the F in Frutiger in the designer tagline. (I also realized I forgot a tilde!) I also got rid of an orphaned word at the bottom.
As per request: here’s the inverted colors:
I still prefer the white background, since its traditional vibe works well with the understated nature of the font, but it was a nice option to explore.
10/16/2020:
Post-final critique notes: my instructors let me know that I’d made the leading for the informational paragraph too small; I guess I took their critique from last time too far? I made one last version that increases the leading on both the information paragraph and the character set.
What I learned:
Honestly, I learned the most from my peers. I’m new to design and unaccustomed to the thought process behind it. Listening to them talk about their motivations for playing with the design elements they used was very helpful in forming how I execute a concept. I was still stuck in box-composition mode and thinking strictly about how to get the blocks of text to sit pleasingly on the page rather than some higher idea. That said, I don’t believe the motivation behind a design can serve as sole justification for its quality; I need to use that conceptual thinking to motivate my design, but it needs to stand on its own whether or not the viewer knows exactly what I was thinking.