Type Specimen Poster Project
I was given a prompt to create an 11x17 poster of a specific typeface that is a historically important typeface. We were assigned typefaces at random and then given time to begin our work on the project in bits and pieces. By the end of this project, I will have a completed poster that explains the history of my typeface, the year it was created, the designer, a full set of upper and lowercase letters, and more tidbits of information on my assigned font. I was assigned the font that I am typing in right now, Times New Roman.
The first step of my project is to do the research on the typeface that I was assigned. Times New Roman is an extremely well known font, and is one of the most basic serif typefaces on modern-day technology. It originally came from a British newspaper called "The Times". The typeface made its big debut on October 3, 1932. Times New Roman was created by Stanley Morison, an adviser to a printing company, in collaboration with Victor Lardent. It has influences of European modern and Baroque printing, and it was specifically designed for newspaper printing. It is often referred to as an "old style" typeface, and it was originally called Times Old Style. The font gained rapid popularity after it originally came out, and even became the official font for the U.S. Department of State, and the recommended font for the APA style that most essays are written in, per Wikipedia.
Following my original research, I had to begin making some tight sketches of my font poster to continue moving forward in the typeface poster project. I worked on these sketches, and I tried to use each of the type systems that we used in class -- axial, bilateral, grid, and modular. These tight sketches had to account for all of the content that I would include in the final product of my poster once I eventually get to that step in the process.
After finishing my sketches, I was instructed to begin a breadth and depth exercise. This exercise consisted of picking three of my sketches and iterating them into a digital format. I had a tough time deciding which ones I was going to choose, so I ended up doing four breadth exercises. The breadth part of the assignment was simply taking my sketches and making them into digital format and adding color. After I did those four breadth exercises, I had to enhance each of them to make them better, which was the depth part of the exercise. When looking at the display below, the top four are my breadth exercises where I was exploring with color and spacing. The row beneath them is correlated to each breadth exercise. For each breadth, there is a depth portion to the iteration where I fine tuned some things that were sticking out to me on the project.
For the green one, I added a circle to make some depth on the project and adjusted the size and color of the year in an attempt to draw the eyes in more to the year. I also enlarged the small paragraphs. I also centered the large text on the axis a little more. I made the line strokes a little bigger as well when I adjusted the font.
For the purple one, I added a dark background to make things pop, and made my large font white, which I think attracts the eyes more and creates a better hierarchy. I also adjusted the small paragraphs to make them bold, as I thought it made it easier to read.
On the red one, I made the circles translucent to make the page seem lighter. I also separated my paragraphs more to make it less overwhelming to the eye and to not scare a reader away. I also adjusted my large font on the side to match the colors of the circles. I made the circles smaller to keep them on one side of the axis that I had created.
Finally, on the blue one, I put the font set all around the page in more places, as I think it gives it more of a background. I also adjusted the look of the year to make it more visually compelling. I ended up doing a sort of gradient with the large letters instead of just using black, which I think creates better layering. Finally, I dulled down some of the white font in the middle.
After finishing my breadth and depth explorations, I printed each of them off, and I brought them to class for a peer critique. I personally did not feel strongly about which one I thought was the best work. Luckily, my peers gave me a lot of really helpful feedback. They liked all of my work for the most part, but they agreed that the blue one was the one that I should continue to work on. Their suggestions were to add a complementary color, as it is a lot of blue, and to get rid of some of the text, as it was making the poster a little bit too daunting and cramped. So, I took the blue poster, and I created many different iterations of it, fine tuning what I thought would work, and figuring out what didn't.
From left to right, here is what I did to each iteration of the project to bring me to my final product.
Iteration 1: I kept the blue coloring to see if I could make it more visually compelling by simply removing some of the text that was overwhelming the viewer and by slightly moving some things around, but I felt like it was still too boring, and not creating the hierarchy that I was looking for.
Iteration 2: I added in an orange color to see how it would look, and I really liked the orange and blue contrast that I created with this iteration, and I used it for almost every other one. I also put my text in area boxes to make it line up correctly with the axis that I was using. I put the year at the bottom, but in a larger, more distanced font, and I adjusted the spacing on my font set.
Iteration 3: I changed the background boxes to be a more bold orange, and I liked the way that looked more than the previous. I also make the font set repeating at the top in a less opaque color than the previous iterations. I enlarged the year, but kept it in the same spot.
Iteration 4: I got a little bit crazy on iteration 4, and I completely changed the whole thing. I wanted to see what it would look like with a different color set, in something that looked a little bit more "vintage". Additionally, I put this poster on a bilateral axis, which I ended up really liking. I also made the creator's name extremely spaced out, and left it all lowercase.
Iteration 5: I went back to the color scheme that I was working with because I thought that it was the most visually compelling. This one, I experimented a little bit more with the axial look that I had been kind of going for in the first three iterations. I liked it a little, but the bilateral was more capturing. Additionally, I changed the spacing, which I was not a huge fan of.
Iteration 6: This is the iteration that I finally landed on for my final product. I wanted to bring together my favorite pieces from all of the other iterations. I put it on a bilateral axis, and I used the orange and blue combination that I thought was attracting the eye. I kept the font set at half opacity, and I liked the boldness of the boxes that I used. I used the lowercase name for the creator, and kept it centered right under the font name. Finally, I worked the spacing a lot and finally found my final product!
And this is the final product! I love how it turned out, and I can see all of the elements that I was going for working in this image. Although I used bilateral text straight down the middle, I think my other components in color, font size, and placement, make it stand out and make it visually compelling for those that would be reading the poster. I will print this out, and mount it onto a poster board in order to present to my classmates on Monday, October 16.
