Keep on Truckin...with Buxom Lips?

I have a confession:  I love me some Sephora makeup, especially the Buxom Lips line.  I have a feeling, though, what first drew me to the brand was the fact that the wordmark font was MILTON GLASER'S.....my design hero.........By the way, a knockoff of this font, called Keepon Truckin NF (web-safe!) is available to you for only $7.95 on a website full of Milton Glaser's fonts.  Just in case you are as excited as I am about Milton Glaser's strong and quirky fonts.  You're checking it out right now, I see you.

Optics

This is a more local band, although they go wherever they are allowed.  I enjoy how the I and S in Iscintilla are close together but I can read it as "I...Scintilla" just fine.  The other letters have extreme kerning and the overall result is a pretty individual wordmark.

A Beautiful CD...and the Design is Great Too

The type MUST be flowery for this type of CD.  If you have the CD or have heard some of it, you would know what I mean.  The New Agey-ness calls for it.  The distressed effect on the type does not seem to imposed, it seems fitting.

CD Extravaganza!

I am going to showcase some more of my CD covers, yay!  I think even though type tends to take a backseat on CD covers, they tend to be well done.  For some reason CD cover designers are good typographers, usually??  I am not sure why.  Anyway, this is my one Covenant CD and I believe the type is pretty innovative.  It is fitting with the band's melodic but thumping futuristic EBM.  The sharp yet not minimalistic type speaks of the coldness of synthetic sound yet is decorated enough to look poetic, much like the lyrics of Covenant's songs.

Mean Stinks

In this magazine ad, I appreciated the photography, scanning and map work done to create this highly realistic rendition of a sharpie on a locker at school.  However, I also decided to do some investigation into this advertisement to see what the heck it means.  It is for Secret antiperspirant, and the company is doing this really interesting new identity and "cause."  It is addressing how girls can be so mean to each other and asking girls to stand up and make a point to stop the meanness and say nice things behind someone's back instead.  Hence the weird complement on this ad.  Check this cause out at their facebook page.

FREE

I saw this ad in with the newspaper.  It was made to look like a calendar with FREE "stamped" all over it.  This caught my eye a while back and now it is so relevant because in class we did an exercise on creating distressed type.  The font is a good choice because it is definitely the kind of font used for a stamp like this:  sans serif, clean, caps.

A Nod to the 90's!

Ace of Base was THE band of 6th grade!!  :)  I really like the way type has been represented here.  I feel using type that looks a lot like it is from the typewriter is hard to match with appropriate images.  Maybe conceptually it works here because it is paired with old looking film. 

Enigma

I have always been inspired by CD cover designs; why not be inspired by the type?  I think this Enigma album has a good type design.  It is very unique; I would classify it as a modern version of a representation of Egyptian hieroglyphics.

CR 3 Media

This is actually from a book I have called "The Secret Life of Logos."  I was looking in there for inspiration on wordmarks for my second project-a wordmark, no pictures, just the word.  I know this is going beyond just the letters but I found this logo to be professional and dynamic, but still modern (clean-cut) and simple enough to be versatile.  Except now that I look at it, does it really need the image on the left?  It is a nice logo with just the gray word and red number.  Then it would be a true word-mark.  In this class I'm learning the choice of type makes all the difference in world when it comes to logos.

Yay Garfield!

I was reading the Sunday comics when I noticed the Garfield comic strip had typographic interest!  I was thrilled.  If I had to place the movement, I would say a mix of Paula Scher/Digial Era/Constructivism?  I probably would need to look it up.  Anyway, I'm finding more and more that I am drawn to messy, unconventional, uneven/maybe unbalanced typography.  Maybe because it is so opposite of what I try to produce in my own work because anything other would be sinful.  Anyway, love love love.

It's still so readable!

I know, I know, this kind of thing-spreading words out on different mediums in the same composition-has been done.  But look at this-you can still read it, and I just say that's talent.  Although I see now that the font is a basic sans serif font, so that definitely helps its readability level when you have it compete with so many other elements in the design.  The colors are a very sophisticated but still fun choice.  Oh, by the way, this is another magazine advertisement.  I'll let you know when I change my source of inspiration.

Tip of the Hat to the Modern Art Movement

I love this cute type design!  I'm sure the designer just scanned in his/her own design for this one.  The design totally makes me think of the 50's and 60's.  At the same time, it is still a little different and brings in some cartoon birds that very much speak to the contemporary advertisements of the day-I think anyway.  I hope someday I will be able to incorporate a new take on old sentiments in my designs in a successful way.

I can see clearly now.

As with the last post I did, this is also an ad from a magazine.  There will be several ads from magazines that I have found in the past couple of weeks because I'm looking through old magazines to cut out pics and type for a college-a side project.  While I am doing this I also am taking advantage of the material to scope out some interesting use of type.  This ad is great because it illustrates its point so vividly.

I Love You!

This is a magazine ad.  I have really been getting sick of coffee/espresso/mocha blah blah ads but at least this one is unique!  What I think is kind of ironic is the particular type used to say such an emotional message is the kind you would get from a typewriter-very formal and stiff.  I would expect something more swishy and scripty.

Shine

I was quickly blowing a gift card at Borders and I was in the finance/business management section doing such.  This rendition of type being integrated into an image is done quite beautifully and when I look at it closer, I realize it did not take rocket science to do this.  I could do something like this!  I actually thought of a couple ways I would make this composition even more dynamic-scooting the tree so that the composition is slightly asymmetrical, for example.  However, I also realize balance is a prime statement finance or business management media must say and the design of the cover is an integral part of that message.

Tuesday Brewsday

Excuse the fuzziness if there is any...my little point and shoot does the best it can.  This is a little advertisement for a promotion at Seven Saints in downtown Champaign.  As a rule I always use fairly contrasting colors when using type over a colored background or image because I'm always afraid my type won't be legible otherwise.  Surprisingly, I could read this quite easily.  If I can learn this skill...to use even closely analogous colors and still have my type legible...it would open up worlds for my design.  I also love the fun typeface, of course.

The History of ITC Korinna

The original Berthold font was introduced in Germany in 1904, during the height of the jugensteil Art Nouveau movement.  Korinna, the revision of this font created in 1973, displays a more refined, modern version.  This legible and dynamic font carries the popular nuances of the Art Nouveau period into current technological uses.  Character proportions were expanded and the x-height enlarged.  The font showcases strong, but not overwhelming, serifs.   In addition, Korinna displays enjoyable abnormalities in a few characteristics-such as the notch on the end of the loop of the “g.”  The third release of Korinna includes four weights and relating italics for flexibility of use.  Korinna is most effective when chosen for headlines, the web and advertisements.

I like Amy Tan's books and if you have seen them you know how intricate the designs are on them.  Now there is an updated design to her books and they focus slightly more on the type design.  I am focusing on the author's name to the left.  This is a great tweak on what seems to be a pretty classic typeface:  the bowing of the middle line in the a's and how the y looks.  Since I don't know a lot about type, I don't have that creativity to switch things up with my typefaces, so I look forward to learning about all sorts of different type options I have throughout this class.

Introduction

This is my blog for my Typography I class at Parkland College!  I will be periodically posting inspiration and written material.  Hope you enjoy!