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Friday, 24 September 2010 05:05

Just Your Type: On Custom Font Design

Written by  Adam Rotmil
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Typefaces, often called fonts these days, abound. When I studied briefly with David Berlow (Font Bureau, Boston), he had a few stories to tell. He said something like this. He said, “I thought of it like selling arms. Type can be used for good or for bad, and I don’t care.” Then, from my memory, he wavered and said that he had started to care. It mattered when he saw his designs used poorly. He said, “Suppose you have a farm. If you say, I like this sheep because she makes the best wool, then that’s professional. If you say, I like this one because she’s pretty…” It reminded me of Emil Ruder’s declaration in his book Typography, “Type has one business before it and that is to communicate.” (Basel School of Design). There we run into questions of what it means to communicate.

We could dress it up with fancy words like ‘semiotics’ and the latest post-this-and-that. That’s an old academic trick. Here is a simple claim: typefaces communicate more than the underlying idea of the words. Just as in oral language, there are connotations. We know this from common experience. Typography can feel techno, can feel pop, can feel esteemed, with infinite variation. And that’s just it. Aren’t there enough typefaces? Berlow addressed this, too: “You could say there are enough shirts, and yet people keep designing them.” Let’s explore why.
1. Typeface Attributes Communicate Brand Attributes
Basically, there are two kinds of typefaces. One is entirely for reading. Its goal is to disappear. You don’t want to notice anything about it. For this, the best typefaces are ones that people are used to already. Proven faces like Bembo, Caslon, Times, Helvetica, Akzidenz, and Gill Sans are workhorses. Then, there is the second sort: usually set at larger sizes, these typefaces suggest feelings. Sturdy and reliable (try slab serif); Honest and humane (try a feet-on-the-ground serif); Invincible corporation (try sans serif); Nice corporation (try a light weight of a humanist sans that is slightly geared toward geometric harmony); Pop (try slightly altering a sans); Established (dig through history and revive something from when your bank was founded); and on and on. The list I just gave is the easy way, it’s off the cuff. When you commission a custom face, it is exactly based on your core brand drivers, whether they are “family and magic” or “human and network.”

2. Fonts for a Specific Purpose
Suppose you’ve got the core of your typeface palette established in your visual identity system guidelines. Then it comes up that in typesetting your annual reports, the numbers don’t really line up in neat columns. What is a monospaced version of your typeface? It means the numbers all have exactly equal spacing, for tabulating figures, and it will be perfect every time.

Suppose your logo lockups and tag-line are bouncing all over the place. The internal design department is slammed. You can have these built into the fonts, so the design department can just press one button and your logo is the same size, perfect every time.

Suppose the typeface for the signage out front is kind of… big. But you’d really like to have that engraved into metal at a small size. It takes a custom adjustment to get the right results. Suppose your newspaper wants to get more words per column inch, so you can get more ROI on your advertising space. There are countless applications for custom fonts. I’m sure you can think of a few, too.

3. Your Logotype is Great, But…
Most logotypes are based on a standard typeface, and then altered to become more expressive. That’s fine for starters, but the alterations won’t match anything else in your visual identity system. It is a good idea to commission a custom typeface design. Without one, it’s really mix and match. And maybe that’s all you really need. Typographer and Professor Wolfgang Weingart said that Akzidenz and Times are the only two typefaces anyone really needs. They are, in the same sense that a pair of khakis and a white shirt is all you really need.

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Adam Rotmil runs the Japan office of Adam Rotmil Partners, specializing in brand strategy and design. He has 15 years of brand and design experience with companies of all sizes. He held a senior creative position at Marsh and McClennan Companies, the premier global services firm. Adam later designed at Brown Brothers Harriman, the largest private bank in the United States. Adam lives in Japan and partners with experts worldwide, sharing projects and talent. His singular vision is to improve brand value through strategy, exploration, and discovery. Adam knows good work implies social awareness, dedication, honesty, and integrity.

This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Visit Adam on the web at www.adamrotmil.com


Further reading: A Type Primer, by John Kane. (Just so you know, John hates the cover.)
Typographie: A Manual of Design, by Emil Ruder.
My Way to Typography, by Wolfgang Weingart.
Font Bureau Type Specimens (Third Edition), by David Berlow.

Further listening: Check out the new album from KASKADE, entitled dance.love

Last modified on Monday, 27 September 2010 03:12
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