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Monday, August 5, 2013

Typosensitive


Stop.  
Pause for a moment.  
No really, stop.
Slow down and take in your surroundings.Wherever you are, whatever you're doing, you will see a constant presence that sub-concisely nibbles away at your awareness of the world.

Multi-talented: Big bold. Light airy. Man handling your attention. Subtly steering and manipulating.  Slowly tempting and teasing. Wrestling your free choice into submission.

The designers secret weapon... Typography.

You wake up in the morning to the neon glow of Matrix Bold Condensed on your digital alarm clock.  You consume the morning newspaper's headlines delivered to you in reliable, trustworthy Times New Roman.  You're assaulted by the high street's competing brand logotypes offered up in a wide variety of mouth watering flavours and choices. Then relax at lunch browsing the world wide web occasionally toying with the world weary Webdings font. Typography is all around us.  It drives and motivates us without us even being aware.

Good typography reminds us of the cliché. It reinforces the product and references the already established history of the genre it's trying to represent. Typography in its simplest form is communication, it should be legible and un-noticeable. But pushed forward into a marketing environment it becomes descriptive and visually representative.   
After legibility its job is to remind us through familiarity.

From a designers point of view typography should not call attention to itself unless its job IS TO CALL ATTENTION TO ITSELF. 

The consumer shouldn't be aware of it working, but it should, in conjunction with other brand tricks, reinforce their perception of the product/company/message. Used correctly it adds advantage to your message.  A flourishy French restaurant font wouldn't work on the side of a white van man's industrial sewage disposal service.

Here are a couple of examples. Which do you think is the Harley Street Children's Doctor and which is the Under 4's kindergarten in Tower Hamlets?

Kindergarten or Harley Street logo?

Good typography tells you about the product, works with the brand and reminds and informs.  An essential weapon in a designer's arsenal and, used correctly, firing your message out without the recipient even being aware. Focusing on the target.

Are you still looking around?  
Your wrist watch face, traffic signs, IPad even the label in your suit... It's all around us.

Mark Fletcher
Graphic Designer


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