Print is back, back, baby!!!

In print design, typography is one of the more crucial aspects. Typography is essential the practice of organizing, arranging, and modifying type. The typography techniques uesed in print has a direct impact on how the reader is able to receive the image. In print, typography doesn’t have to be plain and boring. It can be beautiful, creative, and colorful. There are a number of ways to liven up typography, such as creative and original layouts, using color variations, use of fancy fonts, and much more. Here is one design made beautiful through the use of of a clean, sans serif font.

Swiss Style

Emerging from the modernist and constructivist ideals, the Swiss Style can be defined as an authentic pursue for simplicity – the beauty in the underlines of a purpose, not beauty as a purpose in itself. The principle “form follows function” became a battle-cry of Modernist architects after the 1930s. As a consequence of this principle, most of the Swiss Style craft is devoted to the minimal elements of style such as typography and content layout rather than on textures and illustrations.

Hand-made typeface for a Machine-made age

There is something very appealing about a hand-made element in a digital or print design. Perhaps the reason is that we are so accustomed to this idea of perfection this machine-age has created for us, that when we come across handmade forms it achieves different goals. Ones that cannot be generated by machine such as craftsmanship and humanity.

The beauty of handmade fonts is that it can adopt characteristics of other elements it is made from. For example, typeface that is created with thread and needle may symbolize feelings of comfort, and a domestic environment. While a typeface created with twigs and leaves, symbolize nature and organic impressions. Finally, just plain graphite or pen handwritten letters reclaims the Humanist style, and restores its missing humanity that is void from a computer generated font.

What makes a handmade typeface so unique from a computer generated font is that it is void of geometric restrictions. Straight lines and symmetry are abandoned, giving us the opportunity to break free of formulaic rules and create something truly unique.

The Ultimate Wayfinding Typeface

Road signs have been scientifically researched for years, and yet little is known about the parameters for maximum legibility of typefaces used in signage. The earliest signs were often designed by engineers with a strict geometric approach.

Road sign in Poland...

New signage is based on the tradition of print typefaces.

Ralph Hermann believes if you want to improve the legibility of a typeface used for signage, the most important thing to do would be to increase the viewing distance. Hermann created a legibility tool that would allow real-time simulation of different typefaces during the design stage. This would give Ralph the opportunity to experience the typefaces that would be seen from a distance. It would remove the guesswork and allow him to optimize the design even from the worst reading conditions.

Hermann discovered that the small typographic details we concern ourselves with are lost at a distance, and what mattered most was the skeleton of each letter. On one hand the letters should be very generic, something that we would all be able to recognize, on the other hand they need to be unique to stand out because if the letters are too generic they will be harder to differentiate. So in his design he used average proportions as a starting point but also tried to stress the individual character of each letter.

The following is a visual result of how using hermann's type tool assisted in developing a more legible typeface.

The following examples are typical fonts used in signage today (Orange) and the new typeface designed by Ralph Hermann (Blue).

You can see how Ralph has extended and reshaped some of the finer details in each figure in order to be more legible at all ranges.

The Helvetica Killer

Most people seem to have a love or hate relationship with Helvetica. Bruno Maag (of Dalton Maag) not only dislikes Helvetica, he has gone as far as to attempt to 'wipe it off the face of the planet'. Bruno Maag, and his team have created a new typeface which was created with intentions to replace Helvetica. It is called Aktiv Grotesk. He claims the problem with Helvetica (apart from being repeatedly misused and overused) is that it is poorly crafted, anything but a modernist font, and it is illegible for body copy (which for a Grotesk font, should be completely the opposite).

Bruno wanted to create something that was between Univers and Helvetica—"not as icy cold as Univers but devoid of all the quirks of Helvetica. To have a font that is beautifully crafted, spaced well, with not a chink in a curve or anything – perfectly drawn but hopefully with a bit of personality. We wanted to create something that could be used in a corporate environment but that has that bit of warmth that Univers doesn’t have...The x height is fractionally higher than Helvetica but the rounds have a little bit of squareness about them that Helvetica’s don't have. The differences are really subtle but give it just that bit of personality."

The following are comparisons between Helvetica (image 1) and Aktiv Grotesk (image 2).