Studio Practice: OUGD403 - Studio Brief 2 - Typeface Design (Continued)

I continued by gathering broader research of general signage on billboards, branding and posters. The two which most inspired me were off the side of a bus and off a presentation at college. These two typefaces are used as a base for another design sketch below. I particularly liked the 'N' on the 'MONDIAL' lettering, it was quite a unique way to approach the letter form.

I then traced the capital design above on a light box and tried to manipulate the font into lower case whilst using the same baselines and x heights as a guide.

Bodni Experimentation

I wanted to gather more specific research to develop all of my font ideas so I went to the library and took out the book 'New Typographic Design by David Jury and Roger Fawcett-Tang' This had lots of information on what makes a heavy font and examples which were put into context throughout the book. My favorite was the font above, the density of each letter was interesting. I dissected how this feature had been created and noticed that it was due to the tight kerning and filled in eyes and terminals which gave the letters this personal trait. I then tried to replicate this idea onto the font 'Bodoni'. I feel that this design has not worked as well as intended, this could be because the font is a serif font.

Below I have digitally mocked up a different design from a sans serif font. I have developed this font from similar sources as the sketches above.

Dencity

This ornamental font is a decorative geometric sans serif typeface. It has been designed to be as dense as possible with little space between the kerning of the letters. The inspiration for the slab blueprint has been designed from city life and architecture. The font wants to break the barriers between architecture and type to see just how far a typeface can be taken into the realms of structural design. Concepts for the design include making the font into a freestanding 3D object for city advertising, this converts the font into more of a sculpture. The branding of a company will then merge to become part of the city structure rather than just a sign attached to a building. Due to the density of the letter forms , it can also be applied to the overall shape of a building using birds eye view to spell the company name. Dencity replicates the strength of bricks by using a rigid geometric design , it is bold and powerful enough to make a statement about any topic which a company demands to portray.

Helvetica Ultra Compressed

This is the basic starting point which I have developed for Dencity. I have used the typeface 'Helvetica Ultra Compressed' as my starting font for inspiration. I have looked into ways which I can make this font as dense as possible with techniques such as filling in all of the counters and eyes, minimizing the letter kerning and using line to create a 3D effect. All of these techniques give the font a element of weight relating to my initial adjective 'Heavy'. I have also gave the 'O' and 'Q' an edgy underlining which I believe creates a relationship between the font and urban city life. Underlining the 'O' has originated from the 'Numero Sign' which was created for labeling house and apartment numbers in a busy dense city. For example 'Number 36 Blakely Avenue' to ' № 36 Blakely Avenue '

I also used the font 'superimpose' as inspiration to create the design decision on blocking out the eyes and counters

The relationship between the architecture layout of some of my primary architecture photography and the baseline and x height of my dencity typeface was constructed on photoshop using some of the architectural features and shading devices as direct inspiration. For example the structure on the building below was influential in the way my 3D shape of my letters was constructed.