OUGD403 - Studio Brief 02 - Typeface Design

Typeface Initial
5 / 11 / 15

After presentation of my initial research and discussion of the direction I plan to take with the project, it was clear to me that I wanted to prioritise experimentation with my type in upper case and in relation to my adjective ('vast') it needed to be quite broad and spread out. I started to gather some initial characteristic guidelines that I wanted to toy with which included contrasted brush strokes, present in the fonts Baskerville and Bodoni. However, I knew I wanted to remove the serifs, making it more 'versatile' similar to Helvetica and Berthold Akzidenz. All these ideas started to build up how I was to form my own spin on the typeface to communicate ideas around the word 'vast'. To communicate this concept of reflecting an 'open space' I knew I wanted to create a more open circular style on the counters of letters, etc.

I simply began with recreating the fonts Baskerville and Bodoni but without the serifs. Already I could see how this was going to work so was keen to develop the basic outline to my typeface so I could move onto the more detailed characteristics. 

I liked the contrasting brush strokes on Bodoni, but it is narrower and taller which doesn't reflect my adjective. So I carried over the concept of a larger thick to thin brush stroke ratio onto Baskerville, so it was still wide enough to communicate what I needed it to. 

The negative space created by the shape of the letterforms are definitely a characteristic I can use to my advantage. This idea lead onto hollowing out the letters to maximise the negative space. This visually takes Baskerville away from being a body of text typeface, but in this style it would suit Headings/Sub-Headings very well. 

Here I show how I was considering squared or rounded joints on my letters. I went for a clean cut, squared off design as it actually made the type appear more consistent, sharp and regular, actually again increasing the role negative space around the type plays.

Now that I had my basic idea of how I was going to approach my typeface I wanted to draw out every letter so I could view it as a whole and confront the more problematic letters which would require more individual experimentation and justification. For example, how the descender of the J will work and the middle join of the K, M and W, etc. 

Viewing the hollow vs filled type against each other does highlight how the hollowed thicker brush stroke enhances the contrast. But also how when reduced in size, it would make it less legible therefore suitable for Headings rather than main bodies of text. 

I received feedback on my progress so far and it was very positive. I had a lot of positive comments regarding how I've structured my work and how the justifications I've made always link back to the communication of my adjective. By presenting the above typeface as a whole it allowed me to receive feedback based on each individual letterform and prompted me to focus on the more problematic letters, for example how I was going to approach the tail of the Q. As on the original Baskerville type it is a large flourished tail, and this would not be suitable with my objectives. All involved in the crit agreed with me that a more simplistic line through the counter would be more adequate.