Experimenting with Type

Title & Front Cover Design

From my field research into existing guide books found in shops like Waterstone's and the Village Book store, I decided that a large majority of them were very cluttered and had no consideration for design and were put together purely to include maximum content. As well as this, they also share very similar, common colours that mean that they all look like one another and none of them stand out.

What I aim to achieve with my front cover is a colourful, playful design, similar to the Japanese design pictured on the left, combined with the academic and authoritative design of the Monocle travel guide pictured below.

What I have taken away from the design of the Monocle books is the reliability and authority of the design. To me, the type setting and typefaces used tells the reader or whoever picks it off the shelf that the info inside is reliable and useful. If the book was design completely playfully and colourful, the reader may doubt the practicality or reliability of info inside.

My idea of using strong colours came primarily from the series of LOST iN guides I came across in the Village Book Store. Helped by the way they were displayed, they immediately set themselves apart from all the guide books I saw in the larger book stores through the use of colour and bold, playful type.

Looking to combine the two styles of the publications above, I have made some type specimens and experiments using typefaces I have found online as well as existing ones of illustrator

The type on the left is a font I found called Japanica that takes influence from the Japanese alphabet.

This font works well then typing some words such as Tokyo, however I found that when I typed out my title, the legibility of the font was seriously compromised. This is not suitable for my book as it needs to be recognised and readable straight away in order to inform the reader of the purpose of the book as well as the reliability and practicality.

I had a go at manipulating the type to look like that of the example pictured earlier in this blog. I have aimed to make it more fun and energetic whilst still keeping it legible. I rounded off the corners and added light spots.

When looking for other typefaces to experiment with, I came up with the idea to use typically westernised fonts such as Gill Sans and Avenir. This idea was informed by the fact that I am aiming my publication towards the Western world, especially designers and so by using typefaces that they will recognise and love, it will grab their attention quicker and more successfully as apposed to using a Japanese style typeface that maybe be harder to read or recognise.

I have manipulated Gill Sans on the left in a number of different ways. I looked at the font in Semi Bold and Bold as well as in all Capitals. I then added the light spots and rounded the corners to make for a more bubbly and friendly font. Using a type face like this will help the book be legible as well as appear reliable and practical.

This is a manipulation of the font Avenir which I think works even better than Gill Sans due to the softer curves and buttons.








Manipulating westernised fonts then gave me the idea to look at serif fonts as a way of further westernising Japanese design. This would also, in my opinion, give the book more importance and look more intellectual whilst looking fun and accessible at the same time.