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The word “type crime” is often used to refer to a commonly committed typography design mistake that is often unaesthetic or makes the signage or poster unreadable. Though there are official laws for typography, the term “type crime” is often used in a humorous or colloquial setting. Not to be associated with “sign fails” which are always used to a humorous degree and are often not the result of typography mistakes but rather the purposeful or unpurposeful manipulation of letters in such a way that a foul, often sexual word is spelled out. Though type crimes aren’t a legitimate crime, the impacts of these typography mistakes are often highly prominent. They could lead to a multitude of issues such as misunderstandings, accidents or lack of attention to the text. Typographers have compiled a number of type crimes that have been labeled as “unforgivable.”

One of the biggest type crimes is the misuse of contrast. Especially when it comes to larger signs, the contrast is crucial in making sure the sign is understood and legible.

In this billboard, the lack of contrast between a yellow-brown background and a yellow font text makes it so that the text blends into the background. Ideally, the background is darker or a different hue so that there is greater contrast between the text and the background. Another is a lack of planning in spacing which again leads to bad readability.

An essential part of typography is kerning, that is, the spacing between letters. This example is quite tame compared to some of the more unfortunate accidents that occur with bad kerning. In this example, the letters ‘SA’ are much further from the letters ‘VINGS’ making it look like a separate word. Though in this example, it is evident what the word is supposed to be, in other signs it may not be so obvious.

Can you read the word Lagniappe? I didn’t think so. Another huge type crime is the use of illegible fonts. Because billboard and signs are often viewed either from far away or in a short amount of time, fonts that are too “fancy” or decorative are bad choices for signages.

In addition to font type, font size is also an important choice. Though the text on this example seems legible to us right now, it is because the image is still. However, as outlined on this billboard, most billboards are only seen for a short amount of time. As a result, billboards need larger fonts in order to assure legibility. Noting all these mistakes I will be critiquing a sign and providing a possible alternative in its design.

The sign that I chose commits all four of the aforementioned type crimes which contributes to its lack of appeal and illegibility. The first is of the absurd combination of serif, sans serif, decorative and calligraphic fonts into a singular sign. Each class of font is often used to a specific effect with calligraphic fonts usually have a hint of elegance and in contrast decorative fonts a sense of colloquialism and fun. Also, in contrast, serif fonts which are often used for academic writing and sans serif, which are often for more relaxed, less “uptight” pieces. This melting pot of font classes leaves the viewer without a sense of understanding of the aesthetic purpose of the sign. In other words, the typeface does not hint at the content. In addition, the kerning of the word “accommodation” makes it so that the word is not even legible because each of the letters is so close together. The sign, though the picture, seems to be placed by a road. If this is the case, this means that the font, due to its size would not be visible to oncoming drivers anyways especially with the calligraphic font. Finally, the lack of contrast between the gold colored font and the olive green background will make it so that the font is illegible

 

My poster redesign aims to address all of these type crimes. First I limit the type classes to decorative and sans serif. I use two because I consider the name of the hotel to be a “logo” of sorts and as a result should not have the same characteristics as the subtext, namely the details of the poster. Secondly, The word “accommodation” is no longer squished together and is more legible. Thirdly, I only use the more vibrant yellow in this poster in order to give a significant amount of contrast between the text and the background. Finally, I shift between white and yellow in order to provide emphasis on certain words and break monotony.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Rampton, John. “9 Common Signage Mistakes to Avoid.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 19 Oct. 2015, www.forbes.com/sites/johnrampton/2015/10/19/9-common-signage-mistakes-to-avoid/#4229fda063ae.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In a world that it is full of meetings, get-togethers, distractions and responsibilities it is easy to get caught up in current events and forget to plan for the future. Ryder Carrol created an analog method for keeping track of various activities going on in your life. Conveniently, a bullet journal is created from scratch and thus can be created to be completely aligned with a specific person’s lifestyle. Though bullet journaling does not specifically require the creation of aesthetically pleasing spreads, many “BuJo” artists have taken it upon themselves to create breathtaking spreads.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These spreads utilize a wide variety of items, with enthusiasts becoming familiar with flat nibbed pens, real brush pens and synthetic brush pens allowing them to create aesthetically pleasing typography and decals.

Though many bujo artists have started to innovate their own font and designs, usually creating different fonts for titles and header, one of the most popular ways of writing has garnered some varied opinions. The introduction of “fake calligraphy” or “fauxligraphy” took the bullet journaling community by storm. It begins with simple cursive writing, usually with a simple fine-liner, then its outlined and given a variation in the aperture to capture the effect of a calligraphy pen and ink.

When searching up “fauxligraphy” on the internet, one would usually find multitudes of blog tutorials and images with step by step processes on how to use a seemingly calligraphy pen created font . Some calligraphers such as those in the blog “the scribble collective,” have expressed their acknowledgment that the more modern “whimsical” scripts found in most bullet journals are a far cry from more traditional calligraphy fonts such as Copper Plate and English Roundhand. Some remain angered at the gross oversimplification of the art of calligraphy and dislike the trend aesthetic bullet journaling. For the most part, however, calligraphers seem happy that it is creating new interest in a previously dying practice.

 

A “fauxligraphy” tutorial quide by Kelly Creates:

 

Digital typography is relatively new, coming in 1966 with the invention of the “Digiset” by Dr. Rudolf Hell. The Digiset was the first typesetting machine that worked with pixels or bitmap. However, despite its seemingly recent addition to the typography world, it has created a huge impact. With applications and tools like scanning, computers, glyphs, Adobe Illustrator and such, new typefaces are created daily. In 2006 alone, there were 1,800 commercial typefaces released into the market. (Coles, 2007) In the early days of digital type, there were only around 10 fonts that graphic designers could readily use and a few 50 more main fonts that were easily identifiable outside of the digital world. Each of these fonts was distinct and individual, easily identifiable and linked to critically acclaimed and admired typographers. Now it seems that the invention of aid for the creation of typefaces has lead to the creation of types from those who did not have foundational education in typography. So in a day and age that typefaces are seemingly multiplying in the thousands yearly, how is it that typefaces can remain distinct and individual? How can typographers create original typefaces?

Paul Rand, a popular, American, graphic designer, and art director in the 20th century, has strong opinions on the quality and originality of typefaces being created in the digital age. He mentions in an interview that typographers are basically “extinct” and that of the few left, because they are paid, feel that they need to create something “new.” He states that this isn’t the case, and notes that there is “nothing wrong with new” but it first and foremost must be “good.” Rand puts in beautifully, stating that a typographer does not have to “try to be original,” but simply should try to be “good.” Therefore, by being good, namely to be simple, clear, and understood will create types that as a result are original. The “sum of all of those characteristics is what leads to originality.” Rand states. This is what is wrong with many of the typefaces that are being released on the web now. They do not match the higher standard that older typefaces were required to reach and have overall lowered the quality of typefaces everywhere.

Many typographers worry about the quality of type and are striving hard to preserve it. Some websites such as Typographica scour the internet every year in an effort to select a few new fonts every year that are truly extraordinary and of high quality. Stephan Coles, one of the bloggers of the website explains this process, “If we take this fresh meat and trim the inevitable 90% that is unusable fat, we are still left with hundreds of quality new typefaces, most of which will never get ink from a design magazine or a blurb on a blog.” He highlights how difficult it is to narrow all the new fonts released in a year to a select few. As more and more people gain awareness of the importance of typography, there may be a new wave of enthusiasts looking to preserve the beauty in type.

 

Bibliography:

Coles, Stephan. “Our Favorite Typefaces of 2006.” Typographica, 2007, typographica.org/features/our-favorite-typefaces-of-2006/.

DesignHistory.org. “The Birth of Digital Type.” Early Technologies of Digital Type, 2011, www.designhistory.org/Digital_Revolution_pages/EarlyDigType.html.

FamousGraphicDesigners.org. “Paul Rand | Biography, Designs and Facts.” Famous Graphic Designers, 2018, www.famousgraphicdesigners.org/paul-rand.

        Hermann Zapf, his goal in his life was “to create beautiful letters,” one of his students was quoted saying (Weber, 2015). It is well known that Hermann Zapf is one of the most admired and important calligraphers in history, creating fonts that would serve as a guideline and inspiration for many fonts to come. However, Zapf had not always planned to be a calligrapher, he started out dreaming to be an electrical engineer.

       The life of Hermann Zapf started in chaos. He was born into the German Revolution of 1918 – 1919 and the remnants of World War I. Unfortunately, misfortune did not end there, Zapf later found himself in widespread famine. Fortunately, the school that he was enrolled in and attended, provided meals. Much to his mother’s relief. It was there that Zapf found his interest the technical subjects of school. He found himself most intrigued by an annual science journal titled, Das neue Universum (“The New Universe”), At an early age, Zapf spent his days tinkering with electrical objects with his brother, building things like an alarm system for the house and a crystal radio. Even at this early age, Zapf had already started playing around with type, creating an alphabet in order to communicate with his brother in a secret language.

        Though he initially wanted to be an electrical engineer, due to a new political regime, Zapf was unable to pursue this dream. Fortunately, his teachers had noticed his aptitude for drawing and advised him to try and become a lithographer. However, even this proved to be difficult for the adolescent Zapf because in each interview, he would be asked political question and though he was complimented on his work, he was ultimately rejected. He found his first job in 1934 as a photo retoucher and began his four-year apprenticeship. He became interested in typography through the works of Rudolf Koch and started to teach himself calligraphy through books. As a calligrapher his most popular works were Palatino, Optima, Zapfino and Zapf Dingbats.

       Palatino was created in 1949 and is described as a detailed font where even “small details as the serifs were carefully scrutinized” (Hermann, 2016). It is an old-school serif font named after the gifted Italian writer, Giambattista Palatino.

       Optima is my personal favorite and is a beautifully designed, sans serif font which has such masterfully created variation in aperture that it almost hints at a serif.  It was designed in 1952 and released in 1958. It was created after Zapf was inspired by the lettering on an old Italian grave during a vacation. It was inspired by the Romanic looking alphabet on this grave and was later developed to be more of a display typeface.

       Zapfino is a complicated yet beautiful calligraphic typeface created to showcase the luxury and elegance that type is capable of displaying. It was initially designed in 1944 but due to limitations in type technology, it was released in 1998. One of the key aspects of Zapfino is that its lettering has multiple variations per glyph, each designed specially to complement its sister letters in specific compositions.

       Finally, Zapf Dingbats is a collection of glyphs and symbols that were popularized when they were used by Apple printers.

(Image Sources: Wikipedia)

       Though Hermann Zapf has passed, his legendary fonts continue to influence the development of type to this day. Many will continue to be inspired and guided by his expertise and practiced hand.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

History Graphic Design. “Hermann Zapf.” History of Graphic Design, 2018,

www.historygraphicdesign.com/the-age-of-information/the-international-typographic-style/254-hermann-zapf.

 

Weber, Bruce. “Hermann Zapf, 96, Dies; Designer Whose Letters Are Found

Everywhere.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 Dec. 2017, www.nytimes.com/2015/06/10/arts/design/hermann-zapf-96-dies-designer-whose-letters-are-found-everywhere.html.

 

Zapf, Hermann. “I’ve been asked to tell you about myself and my types” (PDF). Linotype.

Retrieved 26 March 2016.

 

This is one of the most hated fonts in the world. 

How did you feel reading that text? Disgusted? Offended? Did you have a generally adverse reaction to it? Or maybe you got immediately amused, thinking of all the memes and facebook parody videos made about it. Either way, it can be generally assumed that your first reaction wasn’t a positive one. This obviously wasn’t the intention of Vincent Conare, who, in 1994, designed Comic Sans to be a font used for the speech bubbles of the “tutorial dog” in old Microsoft computers. Being inspired by the fun, engaging fonts in comic book strips, Conare wanted to design a font that was looked interesting and handwritten. In addition, it was originally made to be engaging for a younger audience and legible on a computer screen. The intention is innocent enough, so why did Comic Sans become one of the world’s most hated font?

TECHNICAL DESIGN OF THE TYPEFACE

Starting with the technicalities, Comic Sans is an unmodulated font, meaning that the thickness of the lines is mono-width all throughout the font. This leads to a generally unevenly weighted font with the example of the letter n compared between the Helvetica, a very beloved font, and Comic Sans.

For the letter n in Helvetica, it is almost unnoticeable, but the link between the stem and shoulder is thinner than the aperture of the rest of the letter which balances the letter out. When squinting and comparing the two letters together, it can be seen that Comic Sans is unevenly balanced. In addition, because of this imbalance, the kerning of the letters is uneven and makes the overall arrangement of the letters look uneven.

However, the font was initially created in order to look like a fun, young, handwritten font that can be easily read on a grainy, old-school computer screen. So can it really be faulted by being uneven? In fact, when comparing readability of Times New Roman compared to Comic Sans, it shows that Comic Sans is actually easier to read than Times New Roman.

Okay, so if the font does exactly what it was designed to do, and does it well? Why do people still hate it so much?

 

 

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FORMAL AND INFORMAL WRITTEN PIECES

If you were writing a resumé, would you use a font like Georgia or Impact The general answer would be Georgia. So why is this case? A study was conducted by academics at Wichita State University in Kansas in the 2000s showed that in general people thought that serif fonts like Times New Roman and Georgia were more suitable for the formal texts while sans serif fonts like Impact were for more graphic design, and fun, written texts.

The issue concerning Comic Sans is that once it was designed in 1994, people started using it in contexts that it was not created for. It would be used for large-scale billboards, documentation, and advertisement. Evidently, people weren’t too happy about this, and there was even an online petition advocating for the ban of Comic Sans.

As typographers, it is important to be aware of the use of specific fonts and the appropriate time to use them. Otherwise, a font and its creator could be wrongly hated as a result of it.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Bryce, Emma. “Why Do People Hate Comic Sans So Much?” LiveScience, Purch, 20 Jan. 2019, www.livescience.com/64543-why-people-hate-comic-sans-font.html.

Kadavy, David. “Why You Hate Comic Sans.” Design for Hackers, 27 Feb. 2017, designforhackers.com/blog/comic-sans-hate/.

Lettering is an art form that is constantly evolving and adapting. According to Jennie Cohen, the Roman alphabet was one of the first western hemisphere scripts recognized for its commercial use. It was traditionally written in the “print” form in which each letter was individual and had spaces between them, a great contrast to modern cursive in which each letter is connected to the other. By around the 5th century A.D., there were appearances of lowercase letters that connected together, much like how modern cursive does.

CAROLINGIAN MINISCULE

Source: Kualo. “Carolingian Minuscule.” Omniglot.com, 2019, www.omniglot.com/writing/carolingian.htm.

Soon there was the formalization of Carolingian minuscule by Charlemagne who had asked an English monk to create the typeface. Though it was not all connected, Carolingian minuscule had many connecting letters. In 1970, the typeface D’Nealian script was created and implemented in American classrooms in order to “ease the transition from print to a cursive typeface”(Cohen, 2012). In the 20th century, another writing style created by Charles Zaner and Elmer Bloser dominated elementary school classrooms.

D’NEALIAN SCRIPT

Source:https://schoolfonts.com/printnew/_CharSetDNCursive.gif

I clearly remember that when I was a kid, even as a homeschooler, it was part of our curriculum to have handwriting classes. Though I was first taught how to write in print, as I got older, my mother slowly started to introduce cursive writing to me. We were made to use books, worksheets, and homework to improve our writing. Even when writing our test answers or essays, we were made to write in cursive.

As I continued into high school and I was no longer made to write in cursive and I noticed that there was a significant drop in teenagers my age who used cursive to write. I too stopped writing in cursive and enjoyed the freedom to write in print. I was surprised to find that some people who had been able to write in cursive before, had forgotten how to write in the cursive form. Or alternatively, they would write in some hybrid of print and cursive. This, apparently, does not seem like an individual experience. A study of handwriting teachers showed that 37% wrote in cursive, only 8% wrote in print and 55% wrote in a hybrid of the two (Gladstone, 2103).

Recently, however, there has been an increase in the use of cursive again, not as a formal form of writing but as a decorative form. With the increase in popularity of diary decoration and bullet journaling. The youth are relearning how to write in the cursive for aesthetic’s sake. However, because it is now not used for a formal purpose, there has been a lot of variation in the use of script with alterations in the size, spacing, and alignment. Many contemporary artists are taking letters, making them their own and aestheticizing them as they wish.

Bibliography:

Cohen, Jennie. “A Brief History of Penmanship on National Handwriting Day.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 23 Jan. 2012, www.history.com/news/a-brief-history-of-penmanship-on-national-handwriting-day.

Gladstone, Kate. “Is Cursive Dead?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 30 Apr. 2013, www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2013/04/30/should-schools-require-children-to-learn-cursive/handwriting-matters-cursive-doesnt.