Circus Typeface?

Posted on October 18, 2015 by Jess Claxton

After thinking more about the typeface that I had designed and particularly liked, which I had originally thought would go well with a deck of cards, I began thinking that it may work for a circus theme and could possibly advertise a circus – this would fulfil the suitable example part of the brief. Therefore, I started to research into typefaces used by the circus.

I googled ‘circus font’ and found a selection of fonts that could be associated with the circus. Many are very extravagant and are almost always in a serif font. Below is a selection of fonts that can be associated with the circus:

These fonts all seem to be serif fonts and include extra parts that stick out the letter. As I said before these fonts all seem to be rather extravagant which fits with the idea and themes of the circus, which is over the top and dramatic. I would like to try and recreate this in a type but maybe play it down slightly to create a more modern circus themed/advertisement font.

I also noticed that circus’, and clowns in particular, are associated with the diamond shape which I had used before in my first couple of designs – which led me to playing cards. I would like to continue using this in my designs as this, at the moment, has the clear connection between my typeface and the circus – although I would like to further create this bond by maybe making the serifs more extravagant and in fitting with the fonts above.

Playing cards typeface?

Posted on October 18, 2015 by Jess Claxton

My first thought when I did the initial design of my typeface was that it reminded me greatly of playing cards, and the suits – hearts, clubs, spades and diamonds. I, therefore, decided to look into playing cards, the designs they use, as well as the suits and the shapes used.

Most English-language deck of cards use either the same serif font or, less commonly, the same sans serif font.

I was particularly interested in, somehow, incorporating the symbols of the suits into my typeface. Originally, I had used the diamonds as a cut out in the thick stroke of each letter. I decided to play around with the positioning of the symbol more, as I felt that, although the diamond works in that place the other symbols are more complicated and so might require more space, otherwise they may look squashed.

Below is an image of a couple of designs that I came up with to figure out where I could place the suit symbols:

I feel that the first and the last ‘C’, where the suit symbol is inside the thick stroke are too squashed and you cannot clearly see what is inside it. For example, the clubs and the spades symbol is fairly similar and when it is written in a small size they look very similar. I also think that as spades and clubs are a black suit there is less colour to the type and so it would look less like a cut out and just like part of the letter which I do not want.

The other three, in my opinion, work better as they have more space and you can clearly see which suit is which, however I am still not happy with a) the colour of the clubs and the spades as I think that it would be too much black and I would like to add a little bit of colour to my typeface, and b) I don’t feel that it would look good in a font as a whole as I am not sure where I would place the suit symbol in letter that are not rounded and don’t have a centre bit.

I decided to focus mainly on trying to design the letter ‘A’, ‘J’, ‘K’ and ‘Q’, for ‘ace’, ‘jack’/’joker’, ‘king’ and ‘queen’. I thought that if I use these designs I would scan these main letters into the computer and use vectors to create my font in Adobe Illustrator and then place it on to a playing card so my product would be a deck of cards. These are my main four letters:

I think that they need some work done to them as I am still not sure on the serifs on the letters and the overall shape of the ‘K’ but I think that they are in a good place to start.

I would still like to test out the idea of using the diamond shape in the letters, and maybe inside the curved letters as I think that this idea looked quite good in my first attempt and I would like to see where this could go.

Vector Type

Posted on October 17, 2015 by Jess Claxton

In a workshop I learnt how to successfully create a typeface that can be used on a computer using vectors. I did this by scanning in a design that I had done the week before that I was fairly happy with. I chose this font to scan in:

Once scanned in, I opened up the file in Adobe Illustrator and traced the image on. To get rid of the white spaces in between the letter ‘e’, I changed the background colour so it stood out more and then deleted the white area inside it. I had then vectorised my font.

From there I smoothed the edges of the font out so they were not bumpy or anything and flowed nicely. This took a long time until I was sort of happy with my font. I was not entirely happy as there were still a few bumps in places that I did not want them to be and it wasn’t quite as smooth but I was still happy with the results. I could then move the letters around and place them wherever I wanted. When hand drawing this font I had joined the ‘ine’ together to create a calligraphy/script style font. As I had done this I could not move them around separately which I now know for next time.

My vectored font

Cut Out

Posted on October 17, 2015 by Jess Claxton

I was beginning to get stuck for ideas again when I found a piece of typography on a poster I have in my room.

I liked the differences between the stroke weights of the letters and so I tried to copy this into my sketchbook, which did not go so well. I then moved on and researched fonts by Tumblr searching it. I came across this font below:

I found the cutout shapes in the letters interesting and wanted to replicate this in my own work. I merged the two fonts that I have been talking about to create a serif font with thick and thin strokes with cutout shapes in the letters.

This is my favourite design so far. There is a lot of work needed to it before it would be a complete, working font, for example, I need to work on the sizes and shapes of all the letters so they are all equal and matching, and I am not happy with the ‘R’ at all, however I think for a first draft of a design I think that it has gone quite well. I like the serifs on the ‘T’ and ‘E’ and I am happy with the shape of the ‘C’, although I do feel that it needs a bit of work (straightening up etc). I am particularly happy with the ‘A’ as I believe that this gives the font a different edge to it and makes it a little bit quirky.

I chose the diamond shape inside the letters to start with just as a shape to put inside as I didn’t want to completely copy the font that I had found. In reflection, it has inspired to me to look into playing cards and the fonts used there and if I continue on with this design I think that my product that my font is designed for would be for a pack of cards, which I will look into in more detail at some point.

Serif vs. Sans Serif

Posted on October 17, 2015 by Jess Claxton

I decided that before I could properly start designing my own typeface I would need to look more in-depth and serif and sans serif fonts and decide which one I would rather use. To begin with, I thought that I would design a serif font, as these are easier to hand draw, as well as, in my opinion, are slightly more interesting.

Below is a breakdown of the different styles of serif and sans serif fonts.

Serif

A serif is a small line attached to the end of a stroke on a letter of symbol. They are usually linked to Latin and Roman origins and are the preferred font type for long text as it is seen as being easier to read than sans serif.

There are different styles of serif fonts, old style, transitional, didone, slab, clarendon and glyphic.

Old Style – They are characterised by a lack of difference between thick and thin lines, as well as that the thinnest parts of the letters are at an angle rather than at the top or the bottom. The serifs in the old style are usually bracketed and head serifs are often angled. E.g. Garamond

Transitional – The differences between the thick and thin lines are larger than in the old style font but less so than modern serif fonts. Serifs are still bracketed and head serifs are oblique. E.g. Baskerville

Didone – The contrast between thick and thin strokes is obvious and dramatic. Usually, the end of the stroke is finished with a ‘ball terminal’, as opposed to the angled end of old style and transitional. E.g. Bodoni Classic

Slab – These fonts have very heavy serifs, they look very similar to sans serif fonts but with the added serif. There is generally no obvious difference between stroke sizes. E.g. Rockwell

Clarendon – There is a minimal difference between the stroke contrast and the serifs tend to be short-medium length. E.g. Bookman

Glyphic – Again, there is very minimal difference in stroke sizes. It is often characterised by the triangular-shaped serifs. E.g. Albertus

Sans Serif

Sans serif fonts are characterised by the absence of the serif. They tend to have less line width variations than serif fonts.

The different styles of sans serif are explained below:

Grotesque – The first type of grotesque usually has an obvious contrast in stroke weight as well as a slightly squared look to any curves. More modern grotesque fonts show less of a difference in stroke weigh and are less rounded. However, both use the ‘bowl and loop’ g. E.g. Helvetica

Square – These fonts have dramatic squaring of usually rounded areas. E.g. Eurostile

Geometric – These are influenced by geometric shapes and are generally less readable than grotesque fonts. E.g. Futura

Humanistic – There is an apparent difference between stroke weights. They often match characteristics with serif fonts but with a more calligraphic influence. E.g. Gill Sans

After researching both serif and sans serif, I still think that I would rather design a serif font as I could have more variation and play with it more. Although from this research, I could mix the geometric shapes and the general shapes of sans serif fonts with the serifs to see what could happen.