This Studio Brief tasks us with the challenge of designing our own typeface, based on one of Müeller-Brockmanns classic and lead typefaces and emphasising a given word. I was given 'Immense'.
After researching the synonyms, antonyms and definition of the word, I started to get a clear understanding that my typeface needs to be bold and very in your face. I think this will be my hardest challenge as I am always drawn to lighter styles- however, it will be fun to experiment and see what works without being too illegible.
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| Berthold Bold - A more condensed San-Serif connoting simplicity and bold elegance. This is a strong typeface already and may be a good route to experiment down- especially where increasing weight/ width/ scale is concerned. |
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| Berthold City Bold - Strong 'Western' connotations. The bold Serif is very immense in its blockiness, but I feel it is too childish to be tampered with further and not fully right for this brief. |
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| Bodoni Bold - A juxtaposition is instantly created within this typeface, due to the contrast of skinny lines and fat bowls and lines. This could be a really fun and interesting adaptation, as it is encapsulating both synonyms and antonyms of the word. However, as the connotations of Bodoni are more feminine this may detract from the 'immense' nature I am trying to achieve. |
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| Bodoni Regular- I just put this in to see the comparisons between bold/ regular. The lighter version is definitely too immasculine for the word 'immense'. It needs to be bolder and more high contrast. On the other hand, I am a huge fan of how Bodoni writes as a legible font so will therefore try and replicate this ease in my developments. |
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| Clarendon Bold- Similar to Berthold with the Western connotations and bold Serif style, but this one is slightly more gentle. I feel this would look more fluid when written all together, but it definitely needs to be beefed up to be truly 'immense'. |
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| Caslon- A relatively skinny font so not appropriate in its given state. The Serifs and Arms have a nice flicky quality to them connotating a grounded/ planted view on the page whilst linking together really nicely in a written style. |
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| Helvetica Bold- A classic for the legibility and one of two San-Serif within Müeller-Brockmanns's typefaces. Naturally I chose bold to connote towards my chosen word, but still don't think it is bold enough. The way the bold line flows throughout the full letter form is sophisticated, but it would definitely need a new special quality to it to be truly 'Immense'. |
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| Baskerville Bold- Similar to Caslon with wider bowls and collars, so far this one is standing out to me quite a lot. I can imagine this crossed with Berthold-esq ears would be very 'immense'. |
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| Garamond- Too skinny and flimsy for my given word however very legible when written in large paragraphs. |
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| Univers Bold- The other San-Serif within the brief constraints, the adjoining lines (particularly for the crossbars) are slightly thinner than Helvetica bold, but not as thin as the other Serif fonts. This could be effective if I manipulated the widths to give a more intense view, whilst keeping the overall letter forms majority bold. |
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Times Bold- I have personally never been a fan of Times as it reminds me of every boring presentation I have ever seen in my life, but looking closer at the construction of the letter forms the wider bars and ascenders are much more fluid and linear than its Serif counterparts. This is also standing out to me, especially because of the lower case letter R and F. Whilst being bold, the curvature isn't too sharp on the ends meaning it could be manipulated bolder and hopefully retain this quality.
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Furthering from this research, I looked at further research from the below link investigating
Josef Müller-Brockmann's practice as a designer. He has many philosophies where design are regarded, but I am going to try and stick to his 'key points' in reference to the brief. He believes arrangement, ambiguity, unadorned typography and mathematical harmony are things to be considered. Alongside this, appropriate colour and the ability of communicating a universal language is a focal in good design. With this in mind, I want my typography to connote the ideas of 'immense', whilst being appropriate in composition and geometric qualities to create a legible format.
http://ilovetypography.com/2013/01/12/a-firm-turn-toward-the-objective-josef-muller-brockmann-1948-198
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