opinios

Becoming a Font Snob

As part of our time at design school I have started keeping a visual diary.

We are starting to collect images that we like - and ones we don't - in an A4 scrap book, along with commentary about why we like or dislike them. Working in an industrial part of town, there is plenty of ugly signage (panelbeaters, mechanics) for me to photograph. I am definitely starting to look at signs and logos in a different way. Critiquing the spacing between letters on one shop front; the amateurish layout of a brochure in the mail. And of course, admiring some of the postcards and magazine spreads that work really well.

Our first brief was to use three letters from the alphabet, and cut out different sizes, shapes, colours and fonts of those three letters from magazines and junk mail and arrange them all into some sort of abstract or realistic image. I whipped one up on the weekend using three letters that are very close to my heart right now in our endless search for a house - I, O and U. The result is below.

It was fun flicking through women's magazines and cutting bits and pieces out, although I did come to realize that there is little or no variety in the fonts used in those mags. I guess it's a formula that works and they stick to it, but I had a hard time getting any variety. That is also probably to do with the fact that the letters I chose have little variation between fonts and between upper and lower case. I might do another one using some more interesting shapes.

What's your favourite letter? We are talking pure aesthetics here. I think based purely on its shape and variety available I like the lower case f. There is something dorky about the way it hangs forward.