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.

Poor Kerning

For this week's type journal, my assignment was to find an example of bad kerning. Once you finally figure out what kerning is, it is easy to find poor examples of it. Once I arrived home from bowling practice today, I went on a search in my room to find an example. The example I found was on a plaque I had received for winning the county championship in my junior year of high school. The picture was taken at about 10:45 on Thursday, October 22nd. Overall, I feel the letters are spaced too far apart; the "G" especially needs to fit in tighter with the "A" and the "L" next to it. The best spacing on the word is probably in the last two letters, the "E" and the "S," but even those can be taken in a little bit. I feel that if the letters fit tighter, the word "EAGLES" would read much better.

"Bad" Typography

This week's challenge technically wasn't a challenge for me; bad typography exists everywhere. Anything could contribute to bad typography: a font not suited for its purpose, a font that really shouldn't be a font (ex. Papyrus.), poor kerning, poor tracking, poor leading... the list goes on and on. Walking around campus today, I found one particularly hideous poster in the SUB; it just so happened to be in Papyrus. This caught my eye right away, even though it was surrounded by dozens of other posters. For one thing, the poster uses way too much of the Papyrus font, which the use of the font itself is a sin. Not only are the headings in it, but some of the smaller type has it as well. The font isn't the only bad thing though; the poster in generally is busy. On the left hand side there is vertical type, then next to that there is a heading at the top, then a subheading, etc. The KU logo and some cheesy clip art picture also contribute to the busy and trite poster. Overall, it is just a bad piece of typography.

"Good Typography"

This week, the task at hand was trying to find "good typography;" a pretty opened ended concept. I had the opportunity over this past weekend to go on the art bus trip to New York City and visit the Met. The area the Met is located has hundreds upon hundreds of examples of good type; it was so hard to choose only one to take a picture of, especially since my camera was about to die any minute. Towards the end of my trip, I found myself walking down Lexington, where there are a good amount of retail shops and restaurants. I came upon this nice little ice cream place and decided to take a picture of it. The name, Tasti-D-Lite, I think appealed to me just as much as the type itself, which is actually quite simple. The sans-serif font and the blue/ white stroke doesn't compete with the clever name of the store. The small logo of the ice cream cone thats next to it fits in nicely with the chosen font; the colors coordinate and it reiterates the fact that the store sells "tasty delights."

This picture was taken on Saturday, October 5th at around 6:00 PM in New York City on Lexington and 84th Street.

Hand-Rendered Typography

It's the third week of my typography journal and my work load still hasn't gotten any lighter. I wish I could do these sooner in the week, but my life has been occupied by thumbnails, thumbnails, and more thumbnails that it has made it impossible. But anyway, my post this week is on hand-rendered typography. Looking around campus, I couldn't really find a good example. Honestly, most of the hand-written type was poor, and I felt it not worthy to show on here. When I came home, however, I realized that my mom has many country prints which include hand written type. This picture is one of them; it was taken around 7:30 at my house on Thursday, October 1st. Looking at it closely, I could see the pencil lines that are underneath the paint. It, also, was the first thing I saw walking into my door today. Even though I originally wanted something of a poster to put on here, the rustic quality of this crafty print does the job just fine.

Historically Influenced Typography

Well, here it is. My second entry in my typography journal. I can actually thank my visual thinking class for this entry, interestingly enough. All these collages I've had to put together has made quite a tall pile of magazines at my house. Looking through them, I found this awesome spread in my US Bowler magazine. I stopped to look at it immediately; the primary colors, to me, stuck out the most. Remembering back to our lecture on the history of typography, Constructivism was based on a primary color palette. This spread, however, doesn't really incite patriotism, like Constructivism suggests. Instead, I feel with the san serif typefaces and the asymmetrical composition, it also suggests influences of Bauhaus. Bauhaus was and still is extremely influential to modern day graphic design, including this piece.

This photo was taking in a US Youth Bowler Magazine at my house on Thursday, September 24th at around 7:00.

Week 3: Naturally Occurring Letterform

I wanted the first picture in my journal to be something slightly different than the norm. Walking around campus after class today, I found many things I could have taken a picture of; most, however, were probably already taken by another student. So instead, I found my picture in my own house in Exeter Township. This picture was taken on Thursday September 16th at 7:00 PM. Looking around my house, I cam across this letter "G" along the bottom of an end table. This "G" is actually on its side; the end of the table leg curls up to make what looks like a cross stroke on an actual letter "G." I must thank my mother for her awesome sense of design; without this piece of furniture I would probably still be looking for the perfect picture.