I first wanted to see other designers interpretation of 'animated' as a typeface. I looked on sites such as dafont.com and fonts.com and searched my adjective. The fonts usually portrayed characteristics mentioned in my found synonyms. I like the use of extending strokes such as used on the typeface: Sinzano. I felt like this could represented how speed lines are seen on some animated cartoons.
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The synonyms of 'animated' made me sure the typeface I design must look a certain way. The dictionary uses words such as energetic, active and alive to describe the word. This reminded me of posters I have seen on the graphics floor in LCA where typefaces are layered. The low opacity of the letterforms when layered appears like it's blurred and moving like when taking photos at a low shutter speed. I decided this was an idea that I could expand on later in my brief. I hope to use it during experimentation and once I have decided crucial parts of my design process such as choosing the appropriate font.
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a similar idea to the artwork on the graphics floor
where the layering of type creates the impression of movement
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The most important aspect of my design will be basing it on the right typeface. I feel the type should convey it's energetic description. To do this I will be looking for a range of features such straight and and angular stems with difference in thickness. Because of this I think it's important to use a serif typeface as the horizontal lines of terminals work well with the idea connecting to movement.
Six of Brockmann's nine classic and lead typefaces are serif and many of them suit what I'm looking for to base my own typeface on. The typefaces I described are Garamond, Caslon, Baskerville, Bodoni, Clarendon and Times. They all have unique characteristics distinguishing them apart. Choosing the most appropriate typeface is integral for me to create the most successful design I can. From research found both on the internet and through lectures with Simon.
Garamond
This typeface features brackets, cupped serifs and a low x-height. All stems are the same vertical with less contrasting sizes of stem to other san serif fonts.
Caslon
I found out that Caslon has short ascenders and descenders and so is quite a compact typeface. When used in italics this type looks typographic and hand drawn. To me Caslon italic also seems stretched and again compact. For me this looks too squashed in to a small place so may not work as a typeface.
Baskerville
This typeface has features that look hand written such as the 'swash-like tail of Q' and imperfections on the tail's of ascending and descending letterforms such as y, j and f. I like these features and feel they fit well with my theme.
Bodoni
Inspired by Baskerville, Bodoni's proportional serifs and geometric perfection comes across as being a more formal typeface. The high contrasting strokes can sometimes be hard to read due to the difference between stroke width. This is especially true in body text or when type is small.
Clarendon
This typeface has strong bracketed serifs that make it appear more strong and rigid. Letterforms have low contrast and so appear relatively thick. This bold appearance may work well within my design so hope to experiment later.
Times
This particular typeface was designed for The Times broadsheet as was criticised for the use of bad typography. It has fairly even strokes across letterforms however in relatively thin in contrast to other serif typefaces.
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I received some peer feedback about which typeface would be best to base my designs on. I was suggested a number of characteristics that best represent animated. These ideas have greatly influenced my choices early on in this brief. I was told my typeface should have a number of features:
it should look like symbols or be cartoon-like so is perceived to be animated;
it should look friendly;
italic may greater show the ideas of movement;
lowercase type may better suit my word;
there should seem to be a lot happening so it looks over the top;
having a serif typeface is important;
it should seem soft and have flowing and aesthetic features;
may look different when printed compared to when digital.
As well as this feedback I researched a number of typefaces on the internet that best suited my given word. These varied between serif and san serif typefaces yet consistently used high contrasting strokes within lettering. These seem to convey movement well as almost shows the letterforms starting static and moving as the eye scans across the image.
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| Letterforms start with condensed thickness of stems and narrow to a less contrasting form. |
From this research I decided that a high contrasting typeface was essential as would portray what I think best fits the ideas in my manifesto. The classic and lead typefaces with these features include:
Baskerville, Bodoni, Caslon and Garamond.
From these I looked at the Bold, Italic and oblique versions of the fonts. I felt like the best suited was Bodoni Italic as it had the highest contrast and seemed to be best suited to how I wanted to adapt to my word.
Another piece of research I have collated is a gif of variations of an A. The piece was created by Roy Veldcamp and combines "high contrast pairing or specifically designed serif and sans serif font families". As well as the animated movement of each half of type incorporated into the gif, I think the actual final letter creations portray animation well. The sudden change from a thick to thin crossbar suggest a sudden movement of letterforms. I hope to experiment with this idea once finalised which font I want to base the project on.
When searching "animated typefaces' and 'movement typefaces' the obvious results appeared such as gifs of type and movement within images. Originally this isn't what I was aiming for as I wanted to show movement within a static typeface but after seeing some examples of other designers work I have been inspired to hopefully pursue this later in my Brief.
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I've started some experimentation with Bodoni, my chosen typeface, based around ideas from research. I have found the use of layering letterforms an interesting concept and so did various different experiments with it on photoshop. I first adjusted the opacity of the type to 18% so it was only slightly visible after placing various copies of the same type over each other with slight horizontal change each time. The overlapping of the type darkens each letterform.
Because of the combination of layers of text and the use of the oblique tool, the letterforms seem blurred and show movement, however I don't feel that Bodoni regular alone reflects animated as well as it could. I feel like if this was used within my project, It must come after redesigning the original typeface for it to work best with my theme.
For the following experimentation,I decided to use uppercase letterforms as I wanted to link to some of my word's synonyms such as energetic, excited and enthusiastic. I believe this is reflected within Bodoni's uppercase letter
Another experiment inspired by the layering of type is using only outlines. For this I have only used three layers to create the letters. This creates a 3D effect which may. not be suitable as doesn't clearly show movement
My third idea for experimentation is that of creating what looks like a glitch within the type. This idea is one i knew would create the effect of movement whilst still staying static. I looked at various ways I could do this on photoshop. I used tools such as the zig-zag tool and the rectangular marquee tool to what make what looked like distorted type. These came out well but this idea may not work as a full typeface as may look too busy when each letterform has it's own personal distortion.
The experimentation that best links to animation is the one seen below as is one of the first things that springs to mind when set this task. I created a pixelated version of the word animated in Bodoni Italic. It's readability is minimised by the large large pixels however there is a clear link due to animation. My inspiration behind this came from the logo used for the video game Minecraft where you move around animated blocks set up as pixels.
I like this pixelated idea however feel that it doesn't appropriately convey my adjective in the same way as some of my other ideas. It brings down the meaning of the word to it's bare minimum with it's obvious links to 'animated' and it's digital side. Despite this it was the only experimentation that drastically differed from Bodoni. After noticing this I decided I should look to changing how Bodoni looks to create a more successful design in conjunction with the brief.
I looked to the concept of high contrasting stems showing the idea of movement as inspiration and decided to set out experimenting with this in mind. My starting point was Bodoni italics (as seen on the first line of the image below) from there i stretched and decreased the widths of several stems and bowls to what I thought reflected my adjectives in letterforms. I also experimented with several other ideas such a cutting parts out of the letterforms. Some of these ideas looked more like a gun or unlike my expected outcome so I decided not to pursue them. Because of my range of ideas I was unclear with which way my project should go.
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Todays lecture looked at typeface manifesto's. They describe it's features and give a better understanding of it's meanings and origins. We first looked at creating our own in groups for one of Muller-Brockmann's classic and lead typefaces. I then set out to create one for my own typeface:
Extended serif's combined with large contrasting strokes and an italic-like style apply a hand rendered aesthetic to the typeface. It's perceived as showing movement and having a lively nature yet there are no sharp intersects making up the letterforms; instead they are smooth and flowing which comes across as being a friendly and soft looking typeface. Despite having a fluid theme, there is a lot going on within the design with various components contrasting the Bodoni typeface it holds resemblance to.
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My last crit has shown me which direction I should take towards my final design.
Points were made that will influence decisions in my project such as the addition and taking away of serifs. Such is seen on the bottom line of my experiments. This was an idea I really liked once experimented with and after asking numerous people on their opinions of my design I decided to use it for my final design. I created a unique design over 26 letterforms that worked well with my adjective: animated and portrayed its synonyms like I planned to do. This idea was difficult to accomplish on some letters due to curved bowls or obscure serifs such as on the crossbar of the E and F. Because of this it was important that I extended the serifs in the appropriate places and didn't add them haphazardly. This part of my work took the most time due to the importance of getting it right.
I felt that, despite relating back to the brief well and being a successful design, it looked similar to a typeface already created. Because this I felt it should have a unique element. For this, I looked to some earlier ideas. I wanted to use the idea of movement similar to the extended serifs. This made me look towards the layering of letterforms to create a blurred movement effect. I tried out different opacities for layers, the amount of layers used and the position of layers until I had created what I think is a successful typeface.
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An important aspect of this brief was the naming of my typeface. I wanted the name to describe what is seen visually whilst also linking to my inspiration and thought process behind the design. The typeface I based my project on was Bodoni, a serif font, created by Giambattista Bodoni. I decided to translate some words used within my project into Italian as this is where Bodoni was from.
I have decided to name my typeface Vivace. It's translation back to English describes it as: lively, bright, vibrant, vivid, vivacious and animated. This fits in well with animated and it's synonyms as well as linking to it's roots with Bodoni. Because of this I think it's a successful name for the typeface that reflects a formal font with relations to animation and movement.
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I presented my final ideas as a number of pieces of paper for feedback Friday. I was again asked to display some questions for other students to comment on.
Is there anything about my typeface you would change and why?
Does my manifesto & the thought process behind it?
Where do you think my typeface is most likely to be seen commercially?
Is there anything about the typeface you would change and why
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