Anatomy of Type

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Type is a very powerful tool that can affect the tone and message of a design. Similar to when texting rather than speaking face to face, the tone is subject to the person reading it and can therefore be misunderstood. This is where designers can use different fonts (e.g. serif, sans serif, bold, script) to tell a story that otherwise may not have been obvious. For example, bold typefaces can be seen as more masculine and serif fonts more formal. Colour is tool that can be paired with type to cement a certain image in the mind of the audience. In advertising colours have specific roles that help to sell a certain image, for instance purple is a royal/luxurious colour and gives the impression the brand is sought after and respectable. In addition to colour and font, type can also be adjusted in terms of kerning and line spacing. By increasing the space between the characters the font becomes more pleasurable and easier to read, however by decreasing the space tension can be achieved.

To gain experience in using type as a storytelling method, we were tasked to create playbill styled quotes only having the choice of changing the font, kerning and scale alongside a few decorative lines in the playbill style. By pairing certain words and placing the most important words in the largest point size, the audience are given instructions on how this should be read and perceived. For example in the playbill above, I wanted the core words to be 'Dream' 'Bigger' to give the quote an inspirational feel but also to directly send this message to the audience. I decided to give contrast to the word 'Little' by making it a bit smaller than the focal words but still large enough that it is legible and a key part of the message. I selected a script font for 'Darling' to invoke a handwritten feel to give personality to the person speaking but also to give an endearing feel rather than condescending, which it could have easily been misconstrued. By completing this task I was able to explore the use of font without focusing on the easily distracting features of colour and image, which enabled me to see how type is a key aspect of storytelling and how powerful a tool it is on its own.




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