Tags
alignment, grayscale, rotation, scale, spacing, strokeweight, typography
Poster tracing
During class, I had feedback from Shiba about tracing my poster.
From her comments, I can see clearly that the name of the typeface stood out as per my intention. Also, the amount of white space was good and sufficient. As Myriad is a font used for corporate design, it definitely should be presented in a clean and professional format. In this poster, the alignment used was good, and the viewer can easily transit from the most important information, to the body of the text.
However, Shiba also mentioned that the names of the designers should not be in the stroke weight of bold italics, so that the viewer can quickly make association between the font and its uses quickly, which I agree.
Poster
For my poster, I made use of Typeface. Strokeweight, Grayscale, Rotation, Size/Scale, Spacing and Alignment. In this composition, I wanted to bring out the name of the typeface, as well as its uses and description most.
Firstly, in my poster, I wanted to emphasize the letter “y”, because as the description also mentioned, it has a unique descender that can be recognized from other san-serif fonts. Hence, I used scale and grayscale to put “y” into the foreground and to draw the viewer’s eyes first. Also, I cropped the top parts of the letter “y” so as to create continuity, as though the letter “y” is creating a forked road up the composition.
I also used rotation for the whole poster to create a sense of movement and asymmetry in the composition to make it more interesting.
Then, I used alignment to align the uses of the font with “myriad” and the main body text to the start of “riad”, so as to create a hierarchy. I wanted the viewer to see “y”, then myriad, then its uses, followed by the main body text.
I also ensured there were sufficient white space at the bottom left and top right of the composition.
Badge
Prior to designing my badges, I sketched out a few ideas first. Then, combining some of the variables used here, I designed 3 badges using Illustrator. In my designs, I went into the exploration of the little details that could capture people’s attention and also to make them remember the special features of the typeface (mainly the letter “y”) which makes it unique.
Composition 1:
For composition 1, I had the idea to make it simple. I played with scale with an intention of bringing across the idea of the font. By making the badge look like a cropped portion of the poster. I wanted to engage the view by making them see the capital “y” first, and then then “m”, and then relate to what they have seen on the poster. This allows the viewer to have more ownership. I also played with the word “my” which engages the viewer to think that the badge belongs to “someone”. I made this composition simple to emphasize the clean use of the font for corporate purposes.
Composition 2:
In this composition, I experimented with an inversion of the black and white (and scale too), using white to bring the letter “y” into the foreground this time. I also played with rotation to rotate the “y” ~100 degrees clockwise so that it forms a horizontal space to contain the word “myriad”. I played with scale a little for each individual letters of “myriad” so as to make it appear bigger towards the right to give it a little more perspective look.
Composition 3:
In this design, I decided to be more bold with the use of the space, and make the viewer do a little more work.
Apart from the “y” as used earlier, I also wanted to introduce the letter “e” for the first time. This is because the letter “e” is also very special to the typeface, as “it has a slanting e cut” which allows it to be recognized from other san-serif fonts. Then, I quickly realized I can attach “m” to both “e” and “y” to make the words “me” and “my”.
Using grayscale, I wanted to emphasize the word “me” to create some sense of ownership when the viewer sees the badge. So firstly, I wanted to draw the attention of the viewer to see “me”, and then later see the word in greyscale which says “my” and then “myriad”. I wanted to enforce the viewer to first read in an anti-clockwise direction, and then clockwise.
I also played around with lots of rotation and size of each letter to fit them into the space, and to create a dynamic interaction between the letters.
Critiques and changes to draft
Subsequently, for this first draft prior to class, I had some email feedback from Shiba.
Here are some of the feedback:
The poster had distinct chunks of information that still needs some resolution. The different angles of content is confusing with a lack of harmony. With this, I worked along Shiba’s suggestion by having only one element (the letter ‘y’) at an angle and rest all steady. I also left enough margin space around the borders for the content to breathe.
She also mentioned that the names of the font designers are small case and one is in italics? It was at first to make it look a little unique, which isn’t working too, so I changed it. Then, she also feedback to me that the ‘1992’ looks like its about to fall. She suggested reducing its size and aligning it closer to form a coherent chunk with the rest of the text.
As for the badges, she mentioned that she could not see the idea behind having only ‘m’ and ‘y’ highlighted in the first one?
The second composition is interesting but she cautioned that the text might get lost at that size. Finally, she said that there is simply too much going on in the third one and you might want to consider revisiting the arrangement of your letters for better readability.
From her critiques, here are my revised drafts (draft 2):
Poster
For this, Shiba mentioned that the year is not working too. It feels like a different piece of information. The names of the designers seem to have no relation too. There is lack of margin and font size can be reduced. I then through through critique and then planned to use font weight and alignment to bring in hierarchy.
Button Badges
I’ll discuss the critiques of this badge draft in the next post.
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