Kerning, Branding and Grids

09.10.16

Kerning is the spacing that we find in-between the letters within word and/or sentence. 

The study task that was given was called ‘Kerndown’, the aim was to use appropriate kerning between the letters we had been given to represent the appropriate company.

The first kerndown was a luxury car brand. It was decided that the qualities that would be present in the typography for a luxury car brand would be the use of capital letters of a high quality and even spacing between the letters. It was thought that this would give the type a formal look complimenting the idea of the brand being luxury. The example of this can be seen in figure 1. 

The second kerndown was to produce an appropriate type and kerning between letters for a budget food brand. As shown in figure 2, for this it was decided that the word would start with a capital letter and then the rest would be lower case. The letters are close together and have a more informal feel about them, to demonstrate this they have not all been placed on the baseline. It is very basic and uses basic kerning throughout. To improve, it could have been more simplistic and not moved so many of the letter off of the baseline as it could be seen as messy rather than informal.  

The third was to create the look and feel of a condom company type using kerning as the main element being changed. A condom company would need to be seen as clean and safe which is why the letters are all overlapping as it creates a trustworthy feel to the design. However it does still need to involve some sort of playfulness which is why the ’N’ has been turned around to make the design a little bit more cheeky. The example can be seen in figure 3.

The fourth kerndown was for an Indie band. Indie bands are seen to be individual and original so therefore the type need to look a little different. It was decided that it needed to have a picturesque look about it, therefore the ‘e’ has been turned the wrong way and moved off of the baseline to add a subtle difference that makes the design more original. This can been seen in figure 4

The last company we were given was an IT company. Figure 5 shows the design created. It has fairly tight kerning and is very neat and professional looking. It was decided that it needed to look simple and formal creating the feel of uniformity as IT help people across the world. It was also discussed that it needed to be a serious design as nowadays IT is a massive role in the connections and communications of everyone all over the world.

This task demonstrated that it is vital for kerning to be correct to allow for the correct personality and feel to be portrayed within the typography and logo design for a company. This is because it changes the way that a word or phrase is seen or read by the naked eye and defines the way in which we view a company. 

Punctuation, Ligatures and Emojis

09.10.16

For the creation of of a character it was decided to go with the phrase ‘What the hell!?’. This phrase was chosen due to it being a phrase that is commonly used by a wide variety of people and therefore could be beneficial having a character developed to allow it to be used quickly and efficiently.

Figure 1

In Figure 1, these are examples of the original sketches that were later on developed to create the final designs for the character. The designs took on the forms of the letters ‘WTH’.  

The idea behind the design that was decided on was that the original letter forms would still be somewhat present within the design. The design took the form of the ‘W’ resting on the baseline with the left hand stem of the ‘W’ as the ascender. This left hand stem also represented the ‘t’ by the horizontal line across it that was incorporated into the design. The right hand stem however is curved to allow  there to be an incorporation of a lower case ‘h’ within the design. This can all be seen in figure 2 which is the final design created.

Figure 2

The phrase ‘What the hell’ is seen to be very aggressive and so this emotion has tried to be portrayed within the design. The strong, dark lines reflect the meaning of the phrase and also the anger that is present within it. However there as still smaller lines so that the was not too bold meaning that it lost all fluidity. 

After the group critical analysis, it became clear that although the character intended to show the aggression present within the phase ‘What the hell’ it still was too elegant and precise for this anger to be portrayed. This therefore showed that it needs to be adapted into a more simplistic design that fully represents the personality of the phrase that was chosen. To do this it was decided that the top of the left hand stem of the ‘W’ was not necessary and neither are the horizontal bars for the ‘t’. Another consideration would be to extend the end of the right hand stem on the ‘W’ to make it go past and cross over the left hand stem allowing there to still be a slight resemblance of a ‘t’.

The most successful element of the design created was that all three letterforms were managed to be kept and incorporated into the design. Although this was not necessary it makes it more clear when using the character what it is used for and the phrase that is it attempting to portray. 

The least successful element of the design was that it unfortunately did not portray the personality of the phrase in the way that it was designed to. It is too elegant to get the message across and therefore needs to be improved in some way to allow for the phrase to become more clear within the design. 

To improve the performance of the next project there should be more focus payed researching into the meaning and of the letters. This would give a wider range of knowledge of how to allow the personality to come through and the way in which characters should be designed and developed.