Exercise: If the face fits!

Exercise: If the face fits!

This exercise asked me to first create a series of sample books for the various types of fonts and then use those fonts to create a series of commisions. You had to decide which ones would best fit on that certain commission and play around with various typefaces to see the effect it has on the overall look.

The first task was to create the sample books:

I loved this task and feel like it allowed me to explore various type faces and pick my favoites, this is also incredibly useful as a designer to be able to look back on these to choose fonts for design work, instead of just reading them off a list in photoshop you can see the actual font as a preview using "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" which contains all the characters. Overall my favorite style of font is Sans Serif, Im a big fan of how clean and simple they are, my old favorite used to be Arial Black but Ive found a love for MONT, I love the weight of the font and how the characters and very rounded.

For the first commision I was asked to create a short story in a womans magazine, the first thing I did was to gather referance photos of womans magazines.

 I wanted to get a variation of differant womans magazines and how the choice of font effects how the magazine is percieved. I think the most common style of 'Womans' magazine is a gossip magazine like the one above, these seem to use lots of Sans Serif fonts as a way to seem more personal and less serious. Its very bold and can be consumed easily.

This one is more of a sophistaced womans magazine, can still tell some of the same stories but does it in a very elegant way, the minimalist look is accompanied nicely with the serif fonts to give it a very sophistaced feel.

I then went and sketched some differant layout options, I know this exercise wasnt based on layout but when mocking it up I decided to have a go at laying it out nicely aswell. I didnt do loads of sketching becuase In my mind I had a lot of ideas but the sketching helped to visualise them better.

The first one was a more sophistaced ashetic, I wanted to have a Vogue feel to it, the fonts I choose was Nouvelle Vague and a font called Santander. These are both Serif fonts and give a sense of tradition and appear respectable. Becuase of this the story seems more heart felts and meaningful becuase of this. The choice of font allows the publisher to show respect to the victim in a small way.  

On the flip side I used Verdana and Arial Black to create a more light hearted and 'gossip' type magazine. The Sans serif fonts feel more modern. However they do the opposite of Serif fonts, theres no class with them becuase class is associated with being Traditional and respectable, this font choice (because of its modern nature and the rise of gossip in modern society) feels like its down playing the story and taking it to playground gossip level. Now that effect defiantly works in magazines and sells but a publisher should know that this is the effect theyre portraying. 

The next was an advert in a Parish magazine that was asking for more helpers on the flower rota. I initially thought of using a more traditional font given that it is a parish and a Serif font would fit in with the church very well. However in my notes I wrote down that a Sans Serif font would work the same but for differant reasons. Using a Sans Serif font would make the advert seem more personal and the church wants to seem aproachable and friendly given that this is a request for help! I just feel that this makes a more personal connection and might make people more inclined to help the parish. Also in an unrelated note it also makes the Church seem more modern which may be the case with this Parish. However I also mocked up a version of the same advert but using Times New Roman, which was commisioned by The Times in 1931 so it has a long history much like the Church, and seems trusting and respectable which is also things the church wants to come across as, I feel like this font choice also gives Church more integrity. However I think ultimatley my final decision would be the Sans Serif font, I feel like even though the Church itself would use a Serif Font however in this particular circumstances the Church requires help and a Sans Serif makes the request seem more personal.

This version of the final poster 

The next commision was to design a poster for an after school club for boys aged 13-14 year olds. I felt like this commison was best suited for a more decrative fonts as this felt like a fun and exciting oppurtunity to use them. To appeal to the really young audience as well, and also seeming 'cool'.

I felt like using a Sans Serif font would also fit slightly into this situation but even though the Sans Serif fonts are modern and clean, they also have a slight sophisticated feel, especially compared to the fonts I chose which were Adventure and MOON GET. I mocked up the word "Bored?" with other typefaces to show how the decrative font choice is the right one. 

Now its quite obvious after initially looking at this why is choose the font Adventure, its inspired heavily by comic books and has a very exciting feel. The way the letters are formed looks handwritten and as if it should be found on a map or the front cover of a comic book. When compared to Helvetica and Bodoni 72 it looks much less serious and sophisticated. It also has such a childlike nature to the font which fits really well with the commission and demographic.

Just on a layout perspective I feel like the A4 version of this poster works so much better than the A3 one. Also it flows a lot better aswell because It reads from top to bottom instead of left to right, however on the A3 version I have still tried to make the reader read from top to bottom which hasnt worked in my favor as its just forced it to be overly big and and in your face.

The last commision was a 'Friends Engagement party' Instantly I thought of scripture fonts, theyre elegant, formal and stylish and would fit perfectly on an engagement invation especially for those reasons. They just have a beauty to them that compliments the theme of love and elegance that is present at a party like this. However what script isnt good for is large chunks of text, it slowly becomes less legable from a distance so I wanted to pair it with a a font that could be used for the bigger chunks of text on the invite, I chose a Serif font as next to script its the most elegant and sophisticed. Also from a size perspective script fonts take up a lot of room. So it can cause the page to look crowded.

Im happy with how this came out, the script font I chose was called The Blacksmith, its an incredbily elegent font, with beautfil swashes and such a nice flow. It is paired with an equally elgant font called Wonderland. The delicate nature of the font is perfect for an engagement invite. 

I altered part of the invite to include multiple differant fonts, just to experiment and see if the script based typeface was the best option and this ultimately cemented that decison.