Subscribe by RSSDesigning Expressive Words
Published on March 20th, 2008
The fifth project in Designing with Type is to explore the expressive quality of words through typography. I remember doing this project on several occasions while I was attending the Art Institute of Phoenix, but this time around, I gave myself greater parameters.
- I limited myself to the five classic typefaces the book discussed in great length: Garamond (Old Style), Baskerville (Transitional), Bodoni (Modern), Century (Egyptian/Slab Serif) and Helvetica (Sans Serif). The idea was to challenge myself by avoiding the thousands of display typefaces that could easily express the word just through the style of the typeface. Plus, it is nice to study these specific typefaces more closely.
- I had my roommate choose the words for me. When I did this project in school, I got to select my own words. That often makes it easier, but as a graphic designer, I have found it is extremely rare that a company asks me to design a logo for them and lets me name their company whatever I like. Did I say rare? I meant that has never happened to me. Therefore, I felt I should practice with words someone else gave me.
Project | Expressive Words
Purpose
To typographically enhance the meaning of a single word.
Assignment
Select five words and explore their expressive quality by manipulating the letterforms. To achieve the desired effect, avoid simply repeating the words or creating an illustration from the letterforms. The best solutions not only enhance the word’s meaning but are clever and aesthetically pleasing. Sometimes an unexpected effect can be achieved when the typographic solution contradicts the meaning of the word, setting “big” with small type, for example.
The first word she gave me was bright. This one proved to be the hardest for me. I started by thinking about the word and reading multiple definitions. I could have gone with bright light, a bright idea, bright color or bright in terms of intelligence. As far as I was concerned, bright color was out because I had no clue how to represent that typographically in black and white. After sketching a few ideas, I settled on this solution. I think it can represent bright light, bright idea and intelligent — depending on how you interpret it. FONTS: Helvetica Neue 55 Roman and 35 Thin
My next challenge was charge. I really liked the idea of the letters working together to ram or charge at the “E” at the end of the word. I enhanced it more by playing with the weight of the letter to give an idea of greater force as you move across the word. Fonts: Helvetica Neue 37 Thin Condensed, 47 Light Condensed, 57 Condensed, 67 Medium Condensed, 77 Bold Condensed and 75 Bold
After my masculine battering through letters, she gave me bloom. I wanted this word to have a feminine quality to it. The type solution has actually given me a new love for Baskerville. Look at the beautiful shape of those letterforms. They feel taller than Garamond, which helps with the feeling of growth. They are also more feminine than both Century and Bodoni — Baskerville’s letters have a curvy nature, elegant brackets and beautiful balance between thick and thin strokes. Not to mention that asterisk looks almost like a floral dingbat. FONT: Baskerville Regular
I then moved on to lost. I must not have thought much of the word when she originally gave it to me because I had to have her remind me what it was. It was lost in my memory. I played around with the idea of taking parts of the letters away as if they were lost. I ditched that idea for a more legible solution. I tried the word the opposite way with LOS and T floating by itself. However, I started to think I was trying to communicate in Spanish. This arrangement appealed to me the most. The L does not seem to know where it belongs. I wonder if the meaning would come across if the L were missing all together. FONT: Century Regular
My final challenge was magic. My sketches included replacing letters with similar letter shapes — like two inverted Vs to make the M. However, I thought it would not be clear enough that the Vs were creating an illusion of the M. If the reader does not understand the point is the illusion, the concept is lost. I kept thinking magic makes me think of fanfare, wands, top hats and making things appear and disappear. However, I did not want to light the word up by surrounding it with asterisks. I finally came up with a solution where you might think the “agic” is appearing out of the M or disappearing into it. FONT: Adobe Garamond Regular
The only font I was not able to use was Bodoni. I did not like the feel it gave to any of the words she chose for me. That is not to say I think Bodoni does not have a purpose, I just did not find a use for it in this exercise.
What do you think of my solutions? How would you express the words differently?
The only one that doesn’t work for me is charge. I think especially the extra spacing before the E gives the impression of stopping and slowing before stomping down a big fat E. The growing boldness idea would work better, for me personally, if the letter spacing shrunk instead of grew, with the letters charging forward so much that the topple over each other a little.
I especially liked bright and bloom.. I can easily see your bright interpretation used as a logo just how it is. It may or may not be even better turning the i’s dot into some sort of light source; a flame or bulb etc.
Amberlynn’s last blog post..Reacting to Criticism
Posted on March 21st, 2008 at 8:42 am
I just noticed how funny it is that the blog post that links to my critique is titled “Reacting to Criticism.” It’s as if I did it on purpose.
Amberlynn’s last blog post..Reacting to Criticism
Posted on March 21st, 2008 at 8:43 am
Hey Amberlynn,
Thank you for your feedback.
I think it’s interesting that you see that space before the E as slowing down. I put it there because I felt the space was necessary to show the rest of the word was actively running toward the E. I think without the space, the word should be changed to ram.
Another way I could have done it would have been to include the E in the movement and have the word charging toward the side of the box. I discarded that idea because the side of my box has such a thin stroke it looked to me all the letters would have to do is casually push their way through. I played with tightening the spacing of the letters at the end of the word but ultimately didn’t feel it helped the word. I also tried making the letters progressively larger, but liked the idea of the letters staying the same size as if you know they can’t actually stand up to that E. I keep picturing someone trying to charge through a door and ultimately bouncing off it instead.
I too am a fan of bright and bloom. They definitely appeal to my eyes. I really wanted to have a light burst coming off that i in bright and even made one out of lowercase Ls, but decided that is what they meant by “avoid creating an illustration from the letterforms.”
Posted on March 21st, 2008 at 9:17 am
If anyone is interested in seeing what other people have done on this project you can visit this website.
Just for the sake of clarifying, my solutions are not meant to be logos, they are simply word expressions.
Posted on March 21st, 2008 at 1:20 pm
Karly, I certainly see your point about charge not equaling ram. However, I’m still hesitant about its final effect. I do think the rest of your words are strong enough that you could come up with something better if you wanted to.
That is good reasoning for not illustrating the i in bright. It would also explain why you added the flower above bloom instead of as one of the letters. (Would it be too obvious or cliche to make an o into a flower?)
Amberlynn’s last blog post..Reacting to Criticism
Posted on March 21st, 2008 at 9:36 pm
Some excellent solutions to the exercise. I like ‘bright’. How about inverting the ‘i’, so that it becomes an exclmation mark?
johno’s last blog post..eXtreme Type Terminology
Posted on March 22nd, 2008 at 7:16 am
…or even an “exclamation” mark
Posted on March 22nd, 2008 at 7:17 am
[…] Always great to see readers of iLT experimenting with type. Karly set herself an exercise from Designing With Type. Read more about it on Karly’s blog: […]
Posted on March 23rd, 2008 at 12:42 pm
Amberlynn,
If I have some more time to dedicate to this, I might explore more options. As for bloom, here’s an interesting logo that incorporates both Os into a flower-like object: http://www.blooom.at/
Johno,
I’m glad you enjoyed the exercise and extremely happy you mentioned it on ilovetypography.com. I think turning the i into an exclamation mark would work as well. I chose to leave it as an i because this way it can also be interpreted as a lamp post. Although, an exclamation point makes me think of a bright person — a good way of looking at the word as well.
Thanks for your feedback.
Posted on March 23rd, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Hi! This is really good. I love both magic and bloom. Especially bloom looks very pretty.
What I find challenging in your exercise is limiting yourself to the most inexpressive faces. Well, not really, but being so “old” and used in every imaginable context makes them lose their style a bit. Which is perfectly desirable for the purpose at hand… and also not very true: they are great faces with personality. Thanks!
vlad’s last blog post..need::regulations
Posted on March 24th, 2008 at 5:51 am
Hi Karly,
As I said on iLT those look great. I especially like ‘bright’ and ‘lost’. Magic seems much harder than the others to come up with an idea for, I can’t say I can think of anything better than what you came up with.
I have made an attempt myself at expressive words which I have posted on my blog here - I would love for you to take a look and see what you think if you wan to to!
Matt Jewell’s last blog post..Expressive Words
Posted on March 24th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Very good exercise and solutions.
Do you have other examples of this kind of exercise?
Thanks.
Posted on March 25th, 2008 at 5:35 am
Vlad,
You are right. The type faces I used in the exercise are extremely common, but it was fun to push myself to use them creatively. Thanks for you thoughts, I’m glad you stopped by.
Matt,
I enjoyed your take on the project. Nice work.
Pedro,
Are you looking for more type design exercises or more examples of solutions? If you are looking for the first, the Design with Type website has some nice exercises to stretch your thinking about type and work on the fundamentals. If you are wondering about the second, I am currently working on solutions to other type design exercises and am going back through my old solutions to projects of this sort that I did back in my college days. I will be posting about them both sometime in the future. Stay tuned.
Posted on March 25th, 2008 at 2:09 pm
[…] to express their meaning, without changing the letterforms. Check out these great exercises by Karly Barrett, then Matt Jewel’s response and yet another one from Geof. Now it’s my turn. I would […]
Posted on March 26th, 2008 at 3:59 am
Hey Karly,
Thanks for the reply. Setting boundaries is really fun and inspiring, isn’t it? You did a great job with choosing the appropriate typefaces for each word. Only after I tried some myself I came to realize this. You really expressed a lot, and with typefaces that are so very common.
So I kinda stretched the boundaries now. I tried making some words up using only Helvetica. They’re not so expressive, and I think this might be a challenge too … challenging for me right now
Anyway, maybe you’re up for it, who knows. Check them out, anyway!
vlad’s last blog post..Expressive words
Posted on March 26th, 2008 at 4:09 am
awesome
http://katie.blogsite.org
Posted on March 26th, 2008 at 5:58 am
Vlad,
Thank you for your compliments. I also discovered a greater respect for other people’s solutions after I did the exercise myself. I might take you up on your challenge if I get some extra time. Either way, I enjoyed your solutions.
Katie,
Thanks for stopping by.
Posted on March 26th, 2008 at 12:39 pm
[…] week I mentioned the type exercise that Karly set herself. Looks as though she inspired others to have a go. Here are two of them: Vlad (like his […]
Posted on March 30th, 2008 at 11:25 pm
[…] and since i was curious in what i could come up with, i sat down and just took the words from Karly, one of the typenuts who shared their results with John. Though i don’t really know where […]
Posted on April 1st, 2008 at 5:09 pm
Yay, thank you for the inspiration, Karly! I gave it a shot as well. The “assignment” talked about manipulation and illustration, don’t know where they draw a line there, but heck, it’s just for the fun of it, ’aight?
I like your Magic and Charge the best, though i don’t like the magnetized E sticking to the wall, makes no sense to me.
Oh, and by the way, i was too lazy to pick my own words, so i just took yours. You get them back by tomorrow! Gotta clean up first though.
Manuel, Æstheticrew’s last blog post..DIY: Expressive Words
Posted on April 1st, 2008 at 6:34 pm
Manuel,
Thank you for stopping by and sharing your own versions of the words. I have really enjoyed looking at everyone else’s interpretations. I was also confused about what they meant by illustration and originally ranted about it when I was first writing this post, but decided it was a tangent that didn’t need to be there, so I deleted it before I posted.
The E is sticking to the wall in Charge because I thought it made it look like a stronger object for the rest of the word to charge at. Maybe it isn’t working though.
Posted on April 2nd, 2008 at 9:18 am
Lost is definitely my favorite. Bright is a good one as well.
Posted on April 7th, 2008 at 9:51 am
I love these - especially bloom and magic! What a great exercise, I think it would be great for all designers to get back to the basics like this once in a while.
rachel’s last blog post..font game, web savvy friends & freelance
Posted on April 16th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
Thanks Roberta. I’ve been questioning lost ever since I did it. It’s good to know that others like it.
Rachel,
I fully agree. It’s just like everything else, practicing the fundamentals will create a stronger foundation for building skills.
Posted on April 21st, 2008 at 8:39 am
Totally cool!
What a great exercise.
This is the second time I’ve come across your blog and loved the post, I think I’d better subscribe.
Posted on April 27th, 2008 at 11:26 pm
[…] a bit of fun and a thoughtful exercise, so I gave it a go. I only did four words, three of which Karly did (to see what else I could come up with) and one of my own (a dictionary.com Word of the […]
Posted on May 7th, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Thanks Kristarella, I hope you haven’t unsubscribed due to my lack of activity recently. I promise I have some good things brewing.
Posted on May 15th, 2008 at 2:02 pm
Don’t worry! I very rarely unsubscribed due to lack of activity, quite the opposite; I’ve unsubscribed from bogs for too much activity that I couldn’t keep up with. Unless you declare that you won’t be writing, I’ll stay
kristarella’s last blog post..New theme: Clean Shave
Posted on May 15th, 2008 at 2:52 pm