Studio Brief 1 - Visual Thinking - Alphabet soup

Studio Brief 1 - Briefing notes

Manipulation of 10 letterforms to create an interpretation of a set word

Ten physical solutions @ 10cm  x 10 cm

18th October at 3pm

How subtle can I be?

Obvious solution - Stripping down - Experiment - Subtle 

Futura created by Paul Renner

Helvetica latin for Switzerland

The typeface I was given was Helvetica and the word I chose at random was Sensible

My initial ideas of this combination seemed daunting as Helvetica itself denotes sensibility, neutral and has been described as invisible.

'Helvetica was a real step from the 19th century typeface… We were impressed by that because it was more neutral, and neutralism was a word that we loved. It should be neutral. It shouldn’t have a meaning in itself. The meaning is in the content of the text and not in the typeface' - Wim Crouwel (Helvetica Film)

I looked into the history and context of Helvetica, there are hundreds of articles written about Helvetica and opinions range greatly. I watched the film 'Helvetica' by Gary Hustwit which included some of the world's most famous typographers and their opinions of the typeface.

Helvetica was designed by Max Miedinger in 1957 in conjuction with Eduard Hoffman for the Hass type foundry in Munchenstein, Switzerland. Inspired by the 1896 typeface Akzidenz Grotesk, Helvetica is a gothic sans serif font.

This comparison shows the similarity of Helvetica and the typeface Arial which was released the year that the 25 year Helvetica intellectual property license had expired.

Here are examples of Helvetica used within Logos.

Another set of examples in which Helvetica has been used.

I found several alterations of the typeface which explored the letterforms as shapes, minimally and the subconscious reading of Bouma (explored later).

This book by Lars Muller was invaluable in terms of research.

An stimulating extract from 'The Vignelli Canon' talks about the timelessness of design and how a good designer doesn't create temporary solutions but will accomplish its response to a problem that will too, last.

In reference to Helvetica;  'We like a typography that transcends subjectivity and searches for objective values, a typography that is beyond times - that doesn’t follow trends, that reflects its content in an appropriate manner. '

Vignelli refers to Helvetica as a timeless font that has objective values of being a good typeface and not subjective, as opinion is. Vignelli places the design of Helvetica above reasoning subjectivity.

Helvetica is used on the NY Subway maps designed by Vignelli.

  It is a hugely popular font that has created heated discussion in my experience and design studios such as Experimental Jetset use Helvetica predominately creating somewhat of a cult. An excerpt from 'Just My Type' ;

'Helvetica is a font of such practicality--and, its adherents would suggest, such beauty--that it is both ubiquitous and something of a cult.'  

''Helvetica and Univers were perfectly suited to this period, and their use reflected another pervasive force of the age--the coming of mass travel and modern consumerism.''...the font is like oxygen. You have little choice but to breathe it in.'

I believed I had looked into the objectivity and subjectivity of Helvetica well enough to carry on with my decision making process.

I now had to understand my word 'sensible', I received several words from peers that were their word relation results.

What is sensible?

The Synonyms of the word aided me the most in my understanding however as a designer I couldn't miss 'Practical and functional rather than decorative' which is almost para phrasing the modernist associated 'form follows function'.

Form is the shape or design

Function is the purpose

 ' The principle (form follows function) is that the shape of a building or object should be primarily based upon its intended function or purpose.'  (Wikipedia) 

I believe achieving function is to achieve a purpose or solve a problem, however following function can contradict form, for example If a designer was asked to create a typeface that signified strength and sturdiness, aspects of the designers solution would contain decoration therefore affect the form. In relevance to this, I presume any aspect of design that is not their for a purpose is unnecessary.

Modernist functional typography was the first field I explored for inspiration into 'Form follows function'.

One of my favourite typefaces and concepts, the idea of merging upper case and lower creates a sense of strict function in Herbert Bayer's universal. Each letterform is set around an oval grid creating strict uniformity.

The Bauhaus was a pioneer in the modernist movement

I examined this book 'Bauhaus' by Andrew Kennedy to learn the context of the designs and examine some of the typography used that hasn't been digitally created for the modern day. 

I discovered Swiss style was created because of fleeing creatives of Germany and surrounding areas to Switzerland to escape nazi occupied Germany.

This sans serif type by Herbert Bayer was one of the first function > form typographic designs; 'The traditional serif has been eliminated, as has any notion of personalised expressionistic calligraphy or Dada - inspired typographic anarchy' - Andrew Kennedy.

 In relation to typography and my opinion, decoration includes serifs and flourishes. Script, serif and decorative fonts would not be classed as sensible as aspects of the type are unnecessary, in context however, letterforms needed serifs to be carved in stone so before the use of digital resources and presses, these serif fonts would have been seen as minimal/ without decoration.

After considering my new perspective on form following function, I knew I had to create several ideas of function, what the type is used for, where it is going to be used, who is going to use it and how it is going to solve a problem. I looked at examples of type being used to portray a meaning.

Moving horizontal cuts of text represents vibration

Point size decreasing as type appears to fall

Type stroke made from a translucent burn while excessive ascenders turn to smoke.

Similiar to Didot, horizontal legs, arms and crossbars are thin to isolate thick stems.

Similar to example above, ascenders and bowls turn to flames.

Missing stem on T represents subtraction.

Using a range of fonts and point sizes shows the use of alternatives types.

Several lines appear through stems, bowls and cross bars to appear cut.

These examples are all good however the word I was given, Sensible is harder to portray literally however I had to experiment with this.

A literal interpretation of being sensible as being 'square', fitting each character into a square grid.

An underline denotes Sensibility, sophistication and maturity and after finding this example by Italian design studio FF3300, I wanted to alter and create it myself.

Originally designed for a novel named 'Invisible Cities' the stroke through the top of the x height creates a imitation silhouette of a city between the x and ascender height.

Here is my interpretation of an underline denoting sensibility, the underline sits on the baseline and is the same width of the stems.

Although serif typefaces don't fit with the concept form follows function as it were, if the function justifies these serifs, I believe they would acceptable. If the function is to portray sensibility, sophistication and formality then serifs are justified. With this in mind, I added serifs to Helvetica which created a strange contrasting result.

A contrast between an originally gothic font with serifs.

In continuation with these literal responses, I wanted to create a font that fitted with some of the words I received as  responses in my mind map of sensible. Responses such as stern, square and within boundaries encouraged me to look at slab serif typefaces, studying the anatomy above I then tried applying these aspects to Helvetica.

This response is not my strongest as although sensible is not the first concept it denotes, sensibility can be interpreted as sturdy, safe or secure.

Similarly to my sturdy experiment above, I wanted to use the responses I had received from peers. Other responses included formal, smart, neat and behaved which all denoted a script font to me. Due to this, I experimented with the idea of making a script font.

This response created a strange juxtaposition however to keep the Helvetica typeface still relevant, I had to include its characteristics such as the signature counter in a.

After these experiments with a more literal interpretation of the word sensible, I decided to take a more subtle approach ( Just I intended to do in briefing notes).

Looking closer at several letterforms of Helvetica, I discovered the stroke width wasn't equal through out, clearly not as ranging as Bodoni but there is a slight swell on some characters.

The signature 'a' of Helvetica has the largest swell of the font on the bowl , this aspect of the typeface contrasted with a couple of responses I received for the word sensible. Straight, in place, within boundaries, neat and precise all contradicted with this variant in stroke width. This inspired me to alter the typeface to create a constant width.

Original 'n'

A very subtle result was created which I believed to be one of my stronger responses as of yet. 

Similarly to my experiment above, however keeping the stroke width as it is originally, I decided to take the little decoration that there is on Helvetica away. As the dictionary definition states 'Practical and Functional rather than decorative' is Sensible. The flourish of the counter in a lower case 'a' is one of the few decorative aspects of Helvetica.

The kick of the leg of a uppercase 'R' is also one of the few decorative aspects. I took both decorations away.

This resulted in a very subtle, very similar response.

I enjoyed these two very subtle results however I wanted to explore the limits of functionality within a typeface further. I wanted to experiment with these limits, how readable, how efficient, how universal can a typeface become.

Firstly, I looked into the problems that currently exist with type. Talking to peers, dyslexia became a strong topic. Many sufferers said similar letters can become mixed together, looking at Helvetica, I noticed the 'p' 'q' 'b' and 'd' are all exactly the same character positioned differently. This was a problem according to a peer who suffers from dyslexia, so I had a real problem to resolve. Looking at this problem I responded with two ideas.

The first was inspired by an existing typeface aimed at dyslexic readers; 

This is OpenDyslexic, a free font that aids the reading of body copy for sufferers. Counters and horizontal stresses are exaggerated at the bottom of each letterform. I attempted to apply this theory to Helvetica.

This created an interesting result that still had the signature aspects of Helvetica.

The second was inspired from a current 'trend' of random underlined letterforms in contemporary typefaces.

The font Droidiga contains a range of decorative type.

The underlining of the 'o' in Droidiga exaggerates the character, I was inspired to experiment with this to exaggerate and isolate the characters p,q,b and d.

This did work and I was happy with the result as the p and b in the word probe does seem exaggerated and does attract the eye. I didn't have to worry about the characters p and q or b and d together as this doesn't occur in the english dictionary. With at least a space or character between p and q or b and d, two points of interest are created, and never the merging of two which dyslexic peers informed me worked well.

I liked developing type that had a real life purpose so I continued in this direction. Looking at existing examples of type that can aid impaired vision and reading, I came across an interesting piece of design that had never been digitised and the only source of information for this typographic design can be strictly found in a book I unfortunately cannot find the name of.

This overlap of type and braille creates an interesting mix of 2D and 3D, this type for the blind and non blind alike isn't usually seen together as there are several problems with the use of type and braille together, the first I can think of is the use of the two together, when a blind person would feel for the raised dots the letterforms of the type would be covered by the blind persons finger making them illegible. However there are several benefits to this design, one of them being type and braille overlapping means the two can be printed onto half the surface area compared to if the two were separate.

Placing this design in context on a cash point number pad and a handrail shows a clearer idea of the type in use. The dots which would usually just be raised are printed on but this creates the question, why do the dots need to be printed upon since they are no use to people with no visual impairment? This doesn't seem sensible, the printed raised dots are unnecessary / without a justified function. I do appreciate this design however, being strict to the concept form follows function, this designed is not justified.

This is my interpretation of the type x braille concept, these raised dots are not printed upon and are justified form follows function attributes. The use of type x braille can reduce the amount of surface area needed for the two as they are combined. Braille is created using a grid of 2 x 3 dots which in combination relate to a letter.

Braille has varying fonts too.

Continuing in this direction of a higher form of function, I looked into readability and how efficient it can be created with type. I discovered bouma shapes and how the subconscious recognition of descenders and ascenders while reading a word is on the greatest indicators, the idea that type is read as shapes and not individual letterforms intrigued so I decided to experiment with this theory.

This image illustrates the Bouma theory, I experimented with this and developed this into an alphabet

Without editing the typeface itself as this was unnecessary, I created a box around each letterform to enhance the word shape recognition. This end result has similarities to printing blocks and placed together as large body copy creates a bold black series of squares which detracts from the readability and would seem too decorative for header copy so in contradiction isn't in fitting with the concept form following function. 

To compare, here are the 11 typefaces designs of mine, I do prefer the subtle responses, the type with the equal stroke weight through out and the response subtracting the few flourishes are my two favourite, these two could even be combined. My first few, more literal responses are definitely the weakest however, they are the most visually interesting. I don't believe they have a strong enough concept to carry on to Studio Brief 2.

My critique feedback was as I expected, the weaker literal interpretations didn't carry a strong enough concept however my practical resolutions such as the dyslexic, underline and braille were well received. I want to take the equal stroke idea as well as the sans decoration response and discover how far I can go with them.

Here are the ten 10cm x 10cm physical resolutions