Giving Serif a Facelift

In the section Letter in Thinking with Type by Ellen Lupton, she demonstrates how Serif types carry a connotation of formalness and clarity, while Sanserif types are less formal and used more artisitically. Lupton clearly has an argument, citing that most news publications, texts books, official documents, etc. are printed in serif fonts.

After reading through the chapter and thinking about it, I decided that I liked serif fonts better because they’re more decorative. In my opinion it’s sanserif fonts that are boring.
Despite what Lupton says about the inherent formalness of serif fonts, I wanted to find examples of serif-use that had an edgy quality. They also might inspire some resume/workmark projects.

I found an Urban Outfitters logo that I thought showed how serif font could be manipulated to look more informal. They made the “urban outfitters” all lowercase and then tilted the first word (urban) so that the whole design was a little asymmetrical.

Similiarly, the hair product Bedhead adds edge to their serif font logo through all caps, and having parts of the letters appear chipped away.

The Rolling Stone logo also uses serif font. In my opinion, what makes this font appropriate for an youth geared, music magazine, it’s almost always bright red. In this case, it’s an intense color that made the serif font have a little flavor.

Seventeen Magazine also makes serif font youthful by making their title hot pink.

Pepsi and Design

Pepsi underwent yet another rebranding a couple of months back, something that I for one had been oblivious to until I saw my roommate drinking a bottle of Pepsi several hours ago (yes, I know Pepsi is everywhere on this campus). Pepsi decided to change both its red, blue, and white circle and its typography.

For one thing, the Pepsi circle has changed, becoming more diagonal. Some people have discussed whether this was done in order to make it more similar to the Obama symbol. What has sparked even more conversation, though, is the fact that it now looks like a smile—perhaps this is Pepsi’s attempt at some sort of subliminal message that ties Pepsi and smiles together in the consumer’s mind?

Also, they made the white swirl on the Diet Pepsi thinner than that on the Regular Pepsi, which one could interpret to be due to the different effects each type of Pepsi could have on your body. However, the Pepsi can with the thickest white swirl is that of the Pepsi Max, which throws things off, because it, too, is a diet drink.

“In the early 1990s, as digital design tools began supporting the seamless reproduction and integration of media, many designers grew dissatisfied with clean, unsullied, surfaces… (Lupton 29)” Over the last couple of changes, however, Pepsi has brought this back to its logotype.

The old font, which used to be all in uppercase letters, is now all in lowercase. The sans serif typeface was also slimmed down. Furthermore, the letters were distributed more loosely, giving them space to make them look more relaxed. All of these changes might be said to add more simplicity—something people often look for in today’s rushed and complicated world—to the Pepsi logo.

Will Pepsi’s decision to change at the same time America changes bring it prosperity?

Oh look! Another post on typography!

What is there to say about typography that hasn't already been said?  It's one of the most overlooked yet profound methods of advertising and expression in the history of media, and as such, it seems only fair to devote at least a few blogs' worth of time and effort to this noble art.  The lectures, combined with the Lupton reading, have made it all too clear how much of an effect typefaces and type orientation and type color and type size have played in our decision-making as consumers.  It's a job that rarely receives its due credit, choosing fonts that will catch our eye and convey meaning and manage to not overwhelm us with too much visual stimuli.

But when you think about it, and I mean really think about it, typography is one of the only things in our lives that we encounter on a regular basis.  I'm talking every single day in our nearly century-long existences.  Even

 looking around my room I am bombarded by text, be it from my Dark Knight poster or the label on the bottle of the aspirin I took last night for my headache or the label on the Obama pin on my bag or the title of my Snow Cake DVD sitting on my desk.  It's everywhere, and what's more, for some things it's universally recognized.  Take for instance a poster for one of my own personal favorite movies, Jonathan Demme's Oscar-winning picture The Silence of the Lambs, displayed above.  It's a fairly well-known image:  Jodie Foster with the death's-head moth over her lips, the title of the movie featured beneath.  We probably all recognize it right off the bat, and if you don't, you need to start watching better films.  Point is, the set-up is a pretty clear indication of the sort of picture you're about to see:  suspense-thriller, intense plot line, won't-take-your-shit characters.

Now take a look at the image I created in Photoshop.  It's the same basic idea:  Jodie Foster with the death's-head moth over her lips, the title of the movie featured beneath.  The picture is the same, the coloring is the same.  Except...oh wait, there's a small adjustment made to the words The Silence of the Lambs.  I just used a different font, but now the tone of the entire poster has gone from suspense-thriller, intense plot line, won't-take-your-shit characters to something akin to "Clarice Starling goes skipping through the meadow with Dr. Lecter in search of bunny rabbits and rainbows."  In going from a sans serif typeface to a downloaded font called Font Diner Dot Com Sparkly, the whole theme has been altered.  THAT is the power of typography.  Genius decisions can bolster sales by the millions, and mistakes have the potential to lead to marketing flops and even bankruptcy.  It is a rare form of art that can so evenly balance the incorporation of creativity with the preciseness of logical decision-making.  This is the definition of graphic design.

Lutpon Letters

I'll admit that initially I was not sure how interesting a chapter on letters would be, however I was surprised at how many interesting thing I learned. First of all I thought it was really interesting how referring to letters as "uppercase" and "lowercase" originated. In print shops capital letters were literally kept in the case above the one were the smaller letters were kept thus creating an upper and lower cases respectively. 

I also thought it was really interesting that italic letters were originally used as a more casual style of handwriting. Italics were actually used in cheaper writing shops, because the cursive form saved money by saving space. To me personally, however, when I see italic letters they tend to have a connotation of more formal writing. For example many times on fancier invitations you see italics used. I think it is interesting how there has been a shift in how we perceive italic letters. 

On pages 18-19 there are example of John Baskerville letters. At the time that they originated they were seen as "shocking" this was also funny to me, because to me the letters seem so basic, perhaps even boring by our standards today. I could not imagine walking down a street and seeing a poster with this type and having the type along be what stops me in my tracks and shocks me. It's interesting how as a society were have really increased our tolerance to shock. I would imagine that for a graphic designer it become increasing difficult overtime to really shock people with your choice of typeface. 

I also found it really interesting that it was actually the increase in advertising that caused the need for an increase in letter size and new types of typography. I guess I never realized the direct connection between the two and just sort of assumed that the larger letters allowed for advertising - rather than the reverse. Today though there has probably been similar increasing demands for certain typefaces as we experience such technological innovation. We see type everyone on our computers screen, our PDA, cellphone, even the supposedly "basic" cell hpoe have text-messaging capabilities,  video-games and more. The amount of type we see in one day has dramatically increased over the past couple of decades and I imagine that trend will continue. 

As our demand for letters continues to increase I can only imagine the innovations that will develop in regard to typeface. Perhaps one day we will look back on the seemingly "shocking" typeface that exists today and just think " wow, thats pretty boring."