Type Around Town

As you can see the fonts for the 3 business are different although oddly enough the employ the same color scheme. The crossfit and snap fitness signs exhibit a sportier font than fallen angel tattoo sign. It looks like fallen angel is using a font that's papyrus and Bradley hand combined.

Typeogrophy Photos

I saw this sign on a banister next to a restaurant in my hometown today.  I was immediately drawn in by the design of the type.  I like the little "curly cues" at the end of the letter.

I was pretty lucky today because I was able to find two forms of "signage" from the same area.  I think this type represents fun and playfulness.

And last but not least, this sign is special to me because I designed it myself.  We wanted something "catchy" for the ghost hunting sign so we could get people's attention.  It's pretty cool how the acronym for Ghost Hunters of Supernatural Things spells out "Ghost".  We looked a lot of different "type" but thought this one would be the most marketable.

Food for though!

Food for thought. 

I was walking around and found a statuette, I happen to look down and found an outlet cover. Something new antiquated with something seemingly old.

I know this isn't the common typography

But I do think it has some impact. 

Local Typography Photos...

This one to me is kind of funny. It is from a dental office near my house and the typography of the sign is pretty simple and nothing special but what stood out to me was the little smiley face. It just seems so random with this little face. My guess is that it is suppose to play on the "great expressions". Not much of an expression if you ask me!

This is the sign of my favorite place for good old home cooked breakfast ! It is the only New Jersey style diner around these parts of South Florida that I know of and they serve pork roll! Never heard of it?? I guess it is Jersey thing. Anyway, I like the style of their sign, it has an old fashioned feel to it with the slightly cursive type and the underline with the orange stripe through it is sharp. YOU MUST GO!

Here is a salon near the hotel I work at. I drive by it everyday but when I found out about our assignment I took another glance and noticed it has a pretty cool sign for the place. I am not sure what an "organic salon" is but I did like the typography of it. To me, it has like a Middle East or Far East feel to the style of the lettering. Like I said, I am not sure what kind of salon it is and I've never been there but this sign stands out and has kept me intrigued and asking myself "What is really inside???"

Week 1 - Local Typography Photos

Here are some typographic images I took over Christmas break in my hometown of Chardon, Ohio. The town is part of the Western Reserve (surveyed by George Washington) and maintains a New England-y/ colonial feel in all of the businesses and most of the homes around the town square.
A vast majority of the signage, from antique stores to lawyer offices, has a similar type style: a pseudo-classical serif typeface of some sort. The County Treasurer's office (in the old, restored Opera House) is representative, with two different Transitional faces. (Notice how the Opera House 3D letters are compressed, compared to the different, painted signage below.) You can tell they're Transitional rather than Old Style, from the vertical stress and the increased contrast between thick and thin strokes.

The Beans coffee shop begins with the common serif-style face for the logo and menu strip, adding a decorative "fun" typeface for the subheads. Using a decorative face for a logo is usually a bad idea, but the large, bold main face contrasts nicely with the decorative face, reminding us that while coffee is the business it is served in a fun atmosphere.

Knots is a craft store on the main square, and you can tell from the graphic what the business focuses on.
Again, the main face branches off the "ye olde" Transitional style typeface, although it uses a mixture of sizes for the different letters. Unlike the sharp characters in the other signs, this logo looks to be hand-painted both in the business name, but also in the script subhead below the skein of yarn. Note how the yarn is painted to flow in and out of the text, although it changes colors.

Lastly, I couldn't help photograph some laser-printed signs posted on the doors of the county offices... the offices with the nicely composed and beautiful Transitional typefaces.

Apparently it's not clear where you can get dog tags or pay your taxes, so the glass doors are cluttered with sloppy hand-made signs clearly made by people with not a lick of design-sense, in whatever font was handy. So, yes, the Auditor's Office will be closed, mainly because they use Comic Sans! Egads. The Dog Tag sign is just one of many where the perpetrator couldn't figure out how to add an arrow, so hand-drawn arrows were added with a marker. The font is Arial, by the way (look closely at the capital G.)

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Type. And Stories. Most of them true.

"Anyone who would letterspace blackletter would steal sheep."

Got that? No, of course not. Not yet. But by the end of the course it should make sense.

In the greater sense, typography isn't about fonts; it's about design. Using the correct typeface for your message is just as important as choosing the correct colors. Of course, what is correct for one design isn't necessarily correct for another. Or for the same design in another medium, for that matter.

Each week we'll be meeting here to discuss type topics. Start with the week's assigned topic, do research (yes, you're expected to know what you're talking about) and then spark a discussion. The usual rules apply, especially when critiquing student work: "I like it" isn't enough. Dig deep and try to explain what you feel.

And to start out our true stories: the quote above is from type designer Frederick Goudy. In 1936 he received a handlettered certificate of excellence drawn in a heavily letterspaced blackletter font. You just don't do something like that to a typographer and expect to get away with it. What's blackletter? What's letterspacing? For that matter, who is Frederick Goudy? You'll know all that and more in just a few weeks.

And your (design) life will never be the same.