Best Use of Typography in Sharadin

For this week's type journal, our mission was to search the halls of the Sharadin Art Building to find the most interesting use of type. While on break during my Typography class, I stumbled upon a bunch of display cases, most of them containing various types of package design. Package design, to me, is very fascinating; I felt it very fitting to use an example of package design in my type journal this week. The package, or bottle, shown hear caught my attention right away. There were various bottles, each with a different flavor, but one can obviously tell they are from the same name brand. I really like the use of type with the imagery found at the neck of the bottles. The type itself may be a little too flashy for my taste, but overall the design and concept work really well here.

This picture was taken on Thursday, December 10th at around 5:15 PM in the main lobby of Sharadin.

Most Interesting Type on Food Wrapper

For this week's type journal, it is quite ironic that I was to find the most interesting type on a food wrapper considering that I just had my wisdom teeth out last week. I did, however, find a cookie bag in my kitchen cabinet that I have always found interesting. This picture was taken at around 11:00 at night on Thursday, December 3rd. I particularly like the combination of the italic font with the regular version smaller underneath. This is also very simple, with the colors reiterating the luxurious quality of the cookie.

Type as Art

For last week's type journal, the task at hand was to find "type as art;" which pretty much translates to art for art's sake. No advertising or graphic design needed for this journal. Around my house, as seen in an earlier post in my journal, my mom has a lot of decorative pictures that include type. This one, taken on Thursday December 3rd at around 11:00 at night, is one I found particularly interesting. The simple "Bears" headline pretty much sums up the contents of the painting. I thought the simplicity was intriguing, and it is not promoting or selling anything. The painting is just simply for decoration: art for art's sake.

Rebus

For this week's type journal, the goal was to find a good use of a rebus. A rebus is a symbol that is used to represent a letter of the alphabet or a symbol used to represent a sound, phrase, or word. Rebuses are all around us, but the one that I found to put in this type journal is the classic Dunkin' Donuts wrapper. The four squares in the middle of the wrapper are each their own individual rebus: the map of the US stands for "America," the person running stands for "Runs," the word "On" stands alone, and finally the DD stands for "Dunkin' Donuts." I thought this was a clever way to reiterate the company's slogan. This wrapper was found back in October at a Dunkin' Donuts in Hamburg around 8:00 in the morning.

Inspirational

For this week's type journal, we were supposed to find a piece of type that we felt inspired by; something that made us wish that we thought of the idea first. While reading some magazines today, I came across an advertisement for CoverGirl cosmetics. This was found in a recent issue of Cosmo, and the picture was taken at around 10:30 on Thursday, November 12th. What caught me first was the color scheme that was used; the high contrast of the black and white photo combined with the bright, almost AT & T orange let the ad really stand out. What I love most about this ad, however, is the type. The way the type follows the same direction of the mascara is brilliant to me; the type is almost fused with the mascara tube. This technique of type along a path reinforces the product being sold: the mascara.

Good Type Gone Bad

This week, my type journal is exploring the idea of good type "gone bad." Using a particularly nice looking font for the wrong subject matter or one that disrupts visual hierarchy is something I despise. It tells me that the designer didn't really think about their overall design. Walking around Kutztown, there are many examples of this. The one that I choose was found in the SUB at around 5:00 on Thursday, November 5th. The use of the font for the headline actually doesn't really bother me; I would, however, change the green color. What does bother me is the use of the same font in a smaller text area towards the bottom left hand corner; why would someone use a display-ish looking font in smaller text? The pamphlet would look much better if that section of text utilized the same font used for the other small areas of text.

Good Use of Ligature

This week's assignment was to find ligatures put to good use. It was surprisingly hard to find some, but I did end up finding two in an issue of CosmoGirl magazine at my house around 10:00 on Thursday, October 29th. The first one here, the fragrance advertisement for Hilary Duff (its actually the second picture, sorry), may be hard to see. The "t" and the "h" on the word with both share the same stroke; the ending stroke of the "h" loops back over to the "t" to cross itself. I thought it was very clever to use that same stroke in both letters; a separate cross stroke on the "t" might look weird, especially with the cursive like typeface. Another example I found was for the popular company FILA. Here, the "L" connects itself with the one leg of the "A." This one, I felt, might be more well known than the other example. It is also a more obvious ligature than the other example.