BLH TYPO-BLOG: 2013

Sunday, May 5, 2013

ART of typography

I have always liked words and letter as well as art and design. Here is an example of how both or all can be combined into one piece. These are physical designs using paper to create unique font that is colorful and stylish Times New Roman.

ABC- Black n Red

Cyrus Highsmith

Another alphabet design. This one is in red and black and white. The style is very cartoonish with blocky serifs and inconsistent weight variations. This font reminds me of something you woulds see as the title font for a cartoon on nickolodeon.

ABC - Wood

Sherraine C. Phillips -Jamaica

This is another original alphabet design which has been carvedout of a dark wood and photographed. The letters are tall all caps with consisitent wieght. A few of the letters connect or created abstract shapes with the negative space. Some of the letters like H and U have extra serifs that are consisitent with the U and the N. This font is more decrative than practical.

Minimalistic Movie Posters 3 - narration by Morgan Freeman

I came to this Shawshank poster while rummaging through my pins on Pinterest. You could say I'm a man who knows how to get things. When I first came across this poster, I didn't think much of it. To be honest the type was bold, in your face. The red was too red. But then I thought, how ingenious to break up the title like that. I must admit that the title is a mouthful. So breaking the type so that it could read The Shaw-shank Redemp-tion, I think would appeal to people that might have trouble pronoucing things. In the center, is a big hole which represents the whole that Andy dug before he crawled through a tunnel of sewage as long as twelve footbal fields. Or something like that. And also Frank Darabont is awesome because he created the greatest zombie apocolypse TV shows of all time...

Minimalistic Movie Posters 2 - Tracking and leading

This is another mininmalist movie poster for Disney/Marvel's The Avengers movie. The poster features Iron Man and places the actor's name Robert Downey Jr. at the top. This might be misleading because Tony Stark/Iron Man is not exactly the star but it was the Iron Man movie that kicked off the Avengers Initiative.

Below the mask is a line from the movie, Tony's response to Captain America asking him. "Take off the suit, who are you?" The response is "Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist." The text is spaced out in a dynamic way genius is largest, billionair is the longest word and is scaled down to fit and line up with "genius". "Playboy"'s tracking has been increased and 'philathropist" another big word has been scaled to fit.

Below that is the official Avenger's Logo with the iconic "A." and a blocky bold sci-fi font.

Minimalistic Movie Posters 1 - text on shape

I was looking through some examples of minimalistic posters and found a few that relate to typography. I found these three- there are many more but I found the ones that I thought were interesting or that were films I liked. The formula is an iconic shape and color choice such as Darth Vader's helmet or the red coffee cup for Office Space- actually I think it would be funnier if it was a red stapler with all milton quotes or a white coffee cup with all Lumburgh-isms. The shapes are overlaid with a lot of type which containts familiar lines from the movies. The sizing and spacing in the leading and tracking create a textural image but it comes across as a mess. Some of the designs could use more thought but I thought they were interesting.

Thursday, May 2, 2013

Kay Bros

by Armin - Gainesville, FL

One page menu lay out. Simple log of cooking utensils. Dark red type for the menu headings. The off-center style of the menu headings creates a dynamic design. I am working on a similar design for my own menu design.

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

Another Water Bottle Design

Text gets lost in the bg colors.

Hierarchy

I like this Pan Asia Cuisine menu the red is very bold and appetizing. The photos are clear and helpful. Unfortunately we cannot use photos but the hierarchy is what is important to me. This has effective use of space. the headings for the most part are the same size and same font and color.

Monday, April 29, 2013

Harry Potter Fonts

http://www.hellopapermoon.com/p/why-dont-ya-get-to-know-me-little.html

As a fan of the Harry Potter books and movies I thought this was interesting. Apparently you can't write anything relating to magic without a scripity serif-y font with lots of artsy flourish.

The "Harry P" title font for Harry Potter is simple but contains design elements which are inspried by the story. The bar in the "H"looks like a wand or a broomstick. The "P" has jagged lightning to represent the red lightning scar on Harry Potter's forehead which is connected to to overall theme of the books.

"Wizarads Magic" is the swirly font used for the Wizard of Oz.

"Lumos" is the font used in the chapter headsing in the books which is serif font that with varied wieght in the lettering.

"A Charming Font" is associated with the WB show "Charmed" Which looks like candles and witchcraft and ghostly shapes.

"Blackadder"is genuinely from the Blackadder TV show starring Rowan Atkinson.

"Magic School" is the font used in a lot of the products especially those associated with Hogwarts.

Water bottles

1. Kirkland - lavender/purple color - basic bold all caps font - the placement ifs very standard and blocky. Suggests affordability over quality.

2. Dasani - Coca-Cola's water brand which is shaped and uses a dynamic blue pallete which creates reliable feel and I like the font which suggests waves and is similar to the coke brand font. To be honest I have chosen this brand of Aquafina because I like the design better (and the taste) than

3. Aquafina - Minimal mountain design over top of a warped type that is very close to the Dasani but not quite. It does use the Pepsi brand colors blue, white and red.

4. Crystal Geyser - The red border with the cool blue ameks the bottle easy to see from a distance the mountains convey the idea of freshness and natural taste.

5. Deer Park- Iconic deer logo - blue mountain range and Natural Spring Water in yellow.

6. Ozarka - very similar to Deer Park with red behind the type - images of mountains and waterfalls

7. Arrowhead- same basic idea but the mountains are on top

8. Poland Spring- I like the font on this one it looks very regal and the green reminds me of a forest and nature.

9. Ice Mountain- we get it- Ice water is COLD!

Farewell

Fare Well - Ad - Kim A-hae

Here is another example of using typography to create movement through space without illustrations or line art. It creates the illusion of a stairwell and draws the eye through the peace. It would be better with various colors and the font choice is very bland. I would use something more exciting.

The Way Through Doors

http://bookcoverarchive.com/book/the_way_through_doors

The Way Through doors - book cover- Jason booher and Helen Yentus

This book cover design is striking and innovative. The sizing and placement of type arranged to imitate door frames. It is simple and draws the eyes. It isn't very colorful but the typography is pretty cool.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Another Sushi Menu

Sushi Menu - hierarchy

Sushi Menu

Some more ideas for the menu design I like the simplistic style of the images and the color choice of blue on whit with the light brown chopsticks and the various types of sushi.

Menu Stix

A simple menu design with a simple font. It is also effective hierarchy with the headings in all caps and the items in bold and descriptions in regular font. It also works as a black and white piece.

Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Starter Kit

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Starter-Kits/1754400

Chocotoy

This is an interesting typography style and logo design that creates a colorful 3D which is effective in different variations.

Akzidenz Grotesk Beer

by João Andrade Cascais, Portugal

In researching water bottle labels I found for a (I presume) fictional beer Azkidenz Grotesk Beer. Color is used to differentiate between variaties of beer such as bold, light, super, medium. It also is a good demonstration of how to show a label wrapped around the bottle.

Saturday, April 6, 2013

7Film Festival

7Film Festival Flyer - Giuseppe Fierro - Benevento, Italy

Here is a flyer for a film festival. The 7Film festival in Italy. It was designed by Beneventio, Italy's own Giuseppe Fierro. The background color is a solid bright orange which draws the eye without being to aggressive. The text is in alternating black and orange. If this were a flyer in America it might be mistaken for a Halloween film festival but it actually takes place in March and April. The text is an all caps sans seirf font that is simple. The leading of the text lines suggests movie credits or a theater with the name of event as the screen and the film titles and filmmakers as the audience.

Oslo Jazz Fesitval

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Oslo-Jazz-festival/551259

Oslo Jazz Logo - by Sissel Falch - Oslo, Norwey

This is a logo designed by Sissel Falch of Oslo, Norway. The color scheme is blue on blue in a blocky font that suggets a plaid shirt texture. Thee light blue and the dark blue also relate to the them of jazz and blues - flashy and artsy like jazz, dark and moody like the blues.

The flyer below uses the same letters to build the silohouette of a man(skattamoosh skattamoosh will you do the fandango)
Anyway, the image is of a man playing the trumpet. The scattered Oslo Jass logo creates a visual representation of the sound that one would hear in a jazz festival. The band and performer names are listed in a left justified manner. The headliners indicated by the larger sizing of the letters. The performer list could be larger. It would be more effective with increased leading, the veritcal spacing between the lines, and the names could be larger. The image of the trumper player could be reduceds to make room for the band names. Overall the piece is a good example of a music festival poster which uses only type.

Oslo Jazz Flyer - Sissel Falch- Oslo, Norway

TAXI

http://www.behance.net/gallery/Taxi-font/7417495

TAXI font by Patrick Seymour - Montreal, Quebec, Canada

This is another original font design designed by a designer. It is inspired by the traditional yellow and black of a Taxi cab. The letters a bold sans serif font in all caps. It has a very art deco kind of vibe. the letters ar made up of consecutive lines in black with a checkerboard square at the "intersections". These give the peice a vibrant fast-moving feel and the border above and below suggests tire tracks. the bright yellow also give that energy that a big city has.

Thursday, April 4, 2013

The Good, the Bad and the Zugly

The Good, The Bad and the Zugly- CD cover/liner notes design-
by Ludvig Bruneau Rossow- Oslo, Norway
www.behance.net/gallery/The-Good-The-Bad-and-The-Zugly/1092129

This CD cover was designed by Ludvig Bruneau Rossow of Oslo, Norway. The cover is almost all text. It is a crazy font that breaks the boundaries of font design. The wacky shapes draw the eye and almost make the words hard to read. The title of the tracks are arranged in a rectangular spiral which suggests a labyrinth or a frame. The band logo for The Good, The Bad and the Ugly is a jumble of wacky letters.

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Harry Potter Alternate Book Cover Design

Book Design Cover by Dustin Kemper
http://www.behance.net/gallery/Harry-Potter-Re-Cover-Project/4552743

While researching for the book cover project, I came across this re-imagined cover design by Dustin Kemper on behance,net for
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J.K.Rowling. It caught my eye because it related to what I was trying to do with my Neuromancer book cover. On the front cover the Title is scrambled. It is effective in drawing the eye around the page and suggest the them of magic and adventure in the Harry Potter books. The subtitle part is separated into a box- the designer may have been trying to suggest the Mirror of Erised which is an important magical device in the movie. The letters seem to be various fonts I see the "H" looks like some russian letter and the three "r's" are different one is capital and two lower case ones. The P for Potter has the iconic lightning scar. The author's name is on the bottom with even tracking and dashes in between the letters. I think it would be more effective to take out the dashes and put them above the name or make it a solid line above or as a border around the edge.

On the back the title is used again- I don't like the font choice it is too plain and I don't know if it's intentional but Sorcerer's Stone should be capitalized. There is an origami-ish representation of the sorceror's stone. I don't think it need to be on the back and the font. the spacing between the title and the image is off. I would make the image smaller or put the title going across. There is a quote from the book which entices the reader into the story without giving too much away.

If I had time I think I would like to try make my own version of this.

Monday, March 11, 2013

links quick ref

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Dan Hoopert - United Kingrdom

This alphabet was created three dimentionally with wire and photographed from above. The letters are in a font similar to Times new Roman with the serif bits at the end. The wire "lines" convey the weight of each letter accentuating the detailed curves of letters the curvier letters such as the "S" have more wire indicating more curve.

Alphabet Soup

Anders Bakkan - Oslo, Norway http://www.behance.net/gallery/Typography-and-I/5098777

Found this original font design on a typography blog called Typography and I. The image is part of a booklet created by Anders Bakkan from Oslo, Norway who designed both the book and the alphabet pictured above. The font that he created has a striking visual quality. It looks like gears or pulleys. Each letter has a unique style that fits with the overall theme that Bakkan chose. The letters would never work for a practical use such as a term paper but it might be adapted for print ads or billboards.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

- I - Music Festival posters

BLH TYPO BLOG

In researching for the Kinetik Music flyer I went to Google Search to look at some other music festivals. Here are a few of the ones that I liked the most. I may include some of these ideas or reject them altogether. All together? Whatever this isn't english class. I'm not quite sure how to structure this thing so I'm just going to post the posters and write some comments underneath.

This one is for a Goose Lake International festival. The wavy nature of the lines featuring the bands suggests the type of music. Classic rock of the sixties and seventies. Some of them are actually bands that I would like to see. The logo for the festival is a goose which is created with negative space. It is a technique which may work with my logo designs in my graphic design class. For the Kinetik poster I think I would make it less wavy and change the font to be more "industrial" whatever that means.

The second poster is for Temecula Valley International Film and Music Festival. I like that the words great a shape. I'm not quite sure what shape it is but it looks like a building or a tower of some sort. The colors are stark black red and white which would work with the dark electronic genre. I like the negative space man in a Tarantino/Reservoir Dogs black suit and tie. Probably not the dress code for the Kinetik festival but it could work as a different shape or object.

This one is for the Kingstock Music Festival. The thing that makes this one stand out is the colors. the green background with the black silohuettes gives it some energy that suggests that the festival is going to be a good time. It may be too colorful for the Kinetik thing but I could find darker colors.

For the CMA Music Festival flyer or poster suggests a more country feel with a tree as the central theme. It is an interesting way to fit a lot of band names into one collective shape with biggest attractions in bold or larger font.

There were several posters that I saw for the Sasquatch! Festival. It is another take on creating an image out of the band names and a little more organized than other ones I've seen. The band names are blocked off and sized according to how awesome they are or something.

I like this one for Coyote Music Festival mainly because I think the coyote logo is pretty cool. At least the one at the top. The background image one looks a little wonky.

My favorite thing about this one for the Solar Music Festival is the font design for SOLAR. I may make my own version of it for use in this project or a future one.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Welcome to my Typography blog

THIS IS MY TYPOGRAPHY BLOG.

I also have a Design Blog- check it out!

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I like letters and writing so this should be cool.

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