I want to follow the theme for my thesis about brands and personalities. My conclusion was that we don't buy products but brands -those that make us feel identified with as they were given personalities-. The most successful ones have a strong corporate identity and this is given in part by the choices the designer make to fit the brand with a personality and catch the audience that they are after.
Then graphics, and typefaces, have personalities. Think of the logo for Molton Brown, Tiscali or Miss Selfridge -the fonts they use are not interchangeable because they would get a completely different identity and therefore it would be confusing to try to fit that with the whole idea of the company. It would be like the "antitype".
That's my point.
Based on that (i hope not too confusing) I will design possibly 10 different typefaces with completely different personalities that i could interchange later on in different designs/layouts/publicity posters?? to show my point.
Sorry, im not sure about the outcome yet.
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15 comments:
So it would be the same message in 10 different typefaces to demonstrate the strength in character of your fonts?
Something very similar. I aim to use a famous quote related to design and express it in different ways through typefaces, altering the way its perceived. "It's not what you say. Its the way that you say it".
i think what you say is very important, but i have a bit of a thing with quotes, maybe its just me, but they're used all the time.
chris
Yeah! Im not sure what is going to be really. It's just the idea of re-representation. To show different identities through graphics. This might take the form of typography or graphics with support of type.
Refering back to your first paragraph, i went to some talks by designers today and it was either James henderson or Tom evans talked alot about branding. One of them refered to an experiment that has been conducted- they got 100 people to taste 2 unmarked cups, one with pepsi, one with coke. Not knowing which was which. 75% said pepsi tasted better. They then did the same experiment but with a can of pepsi and a can of coke and asked which tasted better, 95% of people said coke. They were obviously infulenced by the brand! I think this subject is really interesting but not sure if i really get your type outcome, but probs just me!!!
Charlie.
oh yes, i read about that experiment! it's amazing how influenced we are or how manipulated...?
The fact that I'm using type for my outcome is because I'm moving from branding to corporate identity. Companies pay special attention to their logo, publicity, packaging, stationary, etc. to show their identity. Therefore graphics are very important for them to illustrate their personality and transmit it to the public.
So, from brands having a personality i moved on to how they show that personality through graphics.chelsea
Perhaps you could go deeper into why brands hold such power, as interchanging typefaces wouldn't take you too long, not three months anyways.
I wasn't going just to exchange brands... I'm straggling to find an outcome, that's why i don't have a project yet! The idea of brands is my starting point. I'm more interested in the power of graphics to show personalities. It could be related to subcultures as well as they wear particular clothes to be identified as punks, etc. But, for my portfolio, i want to produce a piece of graphics and type to do sth that i can show and, also, enjoy for 3 months.
For some reason, I keep coming back to the title of the 'anti-type'/ 'default font'. There is no question that the 'brand-culture' exists in type, after all that is why there so many 'unfashionable' fonts- who can forget comic sans. Would be great to use the title of 'default-font' for the starting point of this theme. What if, for example, every font in Fontbook had a counter-font? the evil side of chic?
Dnt know if this helps, or whether I'm rambling!
Melissa
I thought of the idea of the default font. I thought of what would it be if ALL in london were written with the same font (shops, road signs, theatres, cinemas, museums, graffiti, underground, ads...) That would show complete boredom!!
Maybe that help us to realize how important is design to make things desirable and interesting... instead of default. Giving particular things a different audience.
But at the moment I only can think of a "photoshop" outcome that I'd prefer avoiding...
I'll keep thinking.
Thats a really good idea- you're almost going minimal on your approach, but I think it would get a stronger reaction. It's true- the outcome might be hard to document. But I think it's a worthwhile idea to push.
Melissa
I could document different genres separately:
•cds for music
•dvds for movies
•book covers
•newspapers
•roadsigns
...
and this could take the shape of a poster per genre. It would be an image for instance of different cds (by diferent bands) but all with the same, the only one, plain, boring, "default" font.
And the same for books, magazines, newspapers, road signs, brand logos, etc.
The "antitype"?
there's a book called 1001 Type Treatments or something, you could take a really plain (design your own) & throw everything at it - make it ugly, illegible, futuristic, classic, fluffy, beautiful, etc.
call it the default font & let people download hundreds of different versions of it for every type of font useage.
Thank you for this last comment! I guess you got where I've trying to get for a week now!! I knew it was there, but i couldn't see it. Now everything makes sense (to me, anyway).
(not sure about hundreds of different ones though...)
I need an update on the validity and currencey within this project, please attend a meeting on Wed 7 March at 1.30.
GTS
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