Faced with designing yet another brochure for your
company’s line of augers and mud pumps? Maybe
the sixth in a seemingly endless series of product
specification sheets is making you think twice about
the vitality of your profession—and is causing your
boss to question your ability to create effective and
stimulating graphics.
No worries; typography can spice up your
life—as well as the projects you work on. Try out the
following typographic tricks, and you’ll start having
more graphic fun—and creating documents that will
make people take notice, read copy and take action.
Top 10 tips for getting lively:
1. Make a shape
2. Supersize it
3. Create a time and place
4. Amaze with initials
5. Make your own alphabet
6. Have some pun to make your point
7. Do the unexpected
8. Make white space your friend
9. Use both sets of letters
10. Play with punctuation
MAKE A SHAPE
Using type to convey a message and to create a
graphic shape is a great typographic trick. The shape
helps the message become more inviting, engaging
and memorable. Sometimes pouring copy into the
desired outline can make the shape. Sometimes the
type in a block of copy can be colored or tinted to
reveal a shape. Other times, a line of text copy can
become the outline of a shape.
Remember, though, that creating a typographic
shape is only part of the process. Ensuring that the
copy is still easily read is the other part. Text and
spacing may need to be manipulated to maintain the
shape’s integrity and content readability. It may take
some fine-tuning to get the copy to space well and
look even on all the lines.
SUPERSIZE IT
We’re used to seeing big type against a large backdrop
but, when it fills a small format, the type can
transform into an engaging and dramatic graphic
illustration. Sometimes, if all you’re given is text and
a small budget, large type can enliven the piece and
give it drama beyond the allotted resources.
The hangtags Design Army created for the
Karla Colletto collection of swimwear are an excellent
example of supersizing type. The large letters on
one side of the hangtag become a graphic echo of the
headlines energetic, fun or garish on the other side.
The addition of the photograph of the model further
reinforces the scale of the type.
CREATE A TIME AND PLACE
Retro is the next “new.” Even though your audience
may not have experienced the 1890s or the 1920s
firsthand, creating a design that harkens back to the
Victorian era or the Roaring Twenties takes them to
a time that has a defined aura. This gently engages
the reader in the poster, brochure or document. The
right typeface can easily—and inexpensively—evoke
the look and feel of a time or place. A poster that is
a send-up to ’60s psychedelic lettering or a brochure
that replicates worn wood type from the turn of
the last century is easy to produce using one of the
thousands of period, or “antique,” fonts that are
readily available.
Canadian firm Sid Lee took advantage of
the power of retro to unify the various products
from Saputo Cheese into one strong brand. From
Camembert to Brie, the distinctively different
cheeses are brought into one family of packaging that
delightfully evokes the feel of the 1890s. The fonts
are different; the colors are different. But there is an
overall flavor that unites the menagerie of cheeses
into a suite of like-branded products. Color alone
could not have accomplished the goal, but color and
type proved to be a powerful unifying force.
AMAZE WITH INITIALS
Use initial letters to enliven a page, introduce
paragraphs or even to serve as graphic illustrations.
Historically, initial letters were used to provide a
special introduction to a manuscript page or paragraph.
While they can still perform this traditional
function, initials can also take on much more
important jobs. The wonderful blackletter initials
that designer Marian Bantjes used in the annual
report for the Society of Graphic Designers of
Canada are a perfect example. They create a graphic
echo to the blackletter type used in the report title,
and to the lettering that runs along the left side
of the page. They also serve as touchstones for the
multiple paragraphs on the large poster-sized document.
In addition, the fanciful hairline flourishes
that emanate from the initials take the reader on a
wild ride through the poster.
MAKE YOUR OWN ALPHABET
A hand-drawn headline or series of subheads can
be a delightful and humanizing relief from typical
display typeface designs—just don’t overdo it. A
successful melding of handwriting, minimalist lettering,
simple illustrations and stock photos can produce
an economical and engaging document.
No typeface brings quite the warmth and
implied honesty to a message that calligraphy or
handwriting does. Hand lettering can also create
drama and a feeling of immediacy that no commercial
font can. It can engage the reader and provide
the perfect counterpoint to typeset copy.
The caveat to making your own alphabet is:
Never use a handwriting or calligraphic font to set
more than a handful of words. The quirks, idiosyncrasies
and “human aspects” that make them appear
handwritten or calligraphic become noticeable after
just a few words—and get downright annoying in
sentences or blocks of copy.
Lowercase Inc. created its own alphabet for
the Chicago Volunteer Legal Services’ 2006 annual
report. The rustic, hand-drawn outline letters
announce, “Lawyers solve problems,” creating an
engaging cover for the report. If the words were set in
type, the message would be the same—but the cover
would not be so compelling. Opening the report
reveals the same hand-drawn letters against a pink
background—providing the perfect counterpoint to
the stark black-and-white photographs and illustrations
that pepper the report.
HAVE SOME PUN TO MAKE YOUR POINT
Take advantage of visual puns and multiple typographic
images. It has been said that those of us in
a literate society cannot simultaneously embrace
both sides of a visual pun. We continually flip back
and forth between the possible interpretations. This
is a sure way to involve the reader and to ensure
resonance for your design. Last year’s fifth anniversary
catalog from Veer is a perfect example. Look at
the catalog upright and a large script “5” dominates
the cover. Turn the catalog 90 degrees, however,
and the “5” reveals itself as the last two letters of the
Veer logo.
The caveat to this trick is that if the visual puns
are forced, if they are not absolutely clear and successful,
they will go over like a bad joke. If you need
a little inspiration for creating typographic puns, go
to www.bemboszoo.com.
DO THE UNEXPECTED
Using an unexpected typeface or combining
unlikely typefaces can create memorable typography. Just avoid becoming memorable by employing
bad typography. “Unlikely” and “unexpected” can
be good qualities—“inappropriate,” however, is not.
One unexpected trick that almost always works
is to mix the italic from a serif typeface with any
other design—even a sans serif. The combinations
work surprisingly well.
Marian Bantjes clearly accomplishes the unexpected
in the annual report she designed for the
Society of Graphic Designers of Canada. Even
though blackletter is still used in Germany and has
found a strong following among graphic designers in
Mexico, in North America it is a style not normally
found outside of antique shop signage. Its use in the
large annual report poster, however, is not only unexpected—it is also a graphic delight.
MAKE WHITE SPACE YOUR FRIEND
Avoid long lines of type and deep paragraphs and give
pages lots of “breathing room.” White space invites
the reader into the cover of a catalog or brochure and
helps to focus attention on the type and images.
The sales kit Think Studio in New York created
for Paul Labrecque Hair Care is a wonderful—and
wonderfully successful—example of taking advantage
of white space. Although the product line is
quite complicated (there are six lines of hair care
products, based on hair type and use: straight, color,
curly, volume, repair and daily; and each line has
four products: shampoo, condition, style and finish)
the sales literature has been made visually inviting
and remarkably simple to navigate through the use
of white space and clean typographic arrangement.
(Simple is better.)
And, as for being successful, with the sales kit
in hand, representatives of Paul Labrecque were able
to get into Fred Segal in L.A., Louis in Boston and
Selfridges in the U.K. (Simple also sells.)
USE BOTH SETS OF LETTERS
Headlines, subheads and blocks of copy set in all
caps are deadly dull, difficult to read and take up
valuable page real estate. Always try to set cap and
lowercase headlines and subheads and, when you
have to, use small caps in text copy.
The largest percentage of the type we read is of
the lowercase variety. We are much more comfortable
reading these characters. Studies have also shown that the various heights of the lowercase characters
(x-height characters, ascenders and descenders), when
combined to form a word, create an outline shape
that is stored in the reader’s mind. This word shape
becomes an aid to quick word recognition. Because
of this recall factor, words set in lowercase letters can
be read much faster than words set in all capitals.
It’s important to use only “true-drawn” small
caps, which are available in actual small-cap fonts
or as characters in their respective typeface families.
True-drawn small caps are designed to blend with
the weight, color and proportion of lowercase letters.
Always a poor substitute, computer-generated versions
or reduced caps are simply scaled-down caps,
and they are usually too light and often too narrow.
While using the right set of letters may not seem
like raucous typographic fun, the results are rewarding—and will be appreciated by your readers.
PLAY WITH PUNCTUATION
Exclamation points, question marks, quotes, commas
and other punctuation marks can be powerful
and versatile graphic images. The key is to use them
in unexpected ways. We are accustomed to seeing
exclamation points at the end of a sentence, but
if one is used to replace the letter ‘l’ in the word
“laugh,” a charming and engaging graphic message
is the result.
A few easy ways to add drama, distinction and
multiple levels of meaning to graphic communications
are to use punctuation at very large sizes, as an
illustrative device or even to use marks from different
fonts. The large quotation marks in the booklet that
Design Army created for Signature Theatre frames,
separates and provides a graphic focal point for the
many endorsements.
No doubt about it, typography can be a graphically
fun and stimulating design tool. However, it
takes common sense and a careful eye to create communication
that is inviting, makes an impression,
focuses attention, engages the reader and creates
a mood—ultimately giving life and personality to
the printed word. It’s safe to say that none of the
design solutions discussed here “just fell into place.”
Each solution was carefully planned. Most were
arrived at only after several iterations and false starts.
Typography is fun—but good typography is not
always easy.
