#modular typography

Playing with felt / Experimenting

My idea for a little playful making was to try and emulate the interiors feel and texture. I thought that felt looked a little like carpet, and I could toy around with my shapes to create patterns. Thankfully I had a handy pile of colourful felt in a drawer to experiment with. I picked up 4 squares that were the closest match to the colour palette of my modules and started trying out some concepts. I first thought to cut the modules out and construct some letter forms for my poster. I also liked the idea of simply using the texture as a background for squares in my poster design. 

Below : Exploring some initial ideas using previous colour palette and playing with pattern using the modules of the typeface.

I liked the idea of sticking to a grid format for the poster as it felt a little like floor tiles or interior floor plans. I laid out the shapes and created a pattern using the scanned in felt pieces and the modulars I had created.

Below : The far left design is inspired by some 70′s novel covers, I liked the structure and use of segregated sections broken up by the pattern. 

Below: I really enjoy the striped pattern using the felt, to me it really looks like a carpet and is the same structure as my module.

Above: a randomised grid system which mixes the felt and modules. I quite like the one on the left as it looks like fabric samples to me and creates that interior feeling I was going for. If this was to be printed it would be a nice to touch to have actual felt on the design so you could feel the texture. At this point I am not sure how to finalise my front and back design to be cohesive, and I’m unsure if ‘donna’ should sit on front or back of the design. 

Below: I’d quite like to just use the modules as a pattern on the front as more of a homage to the theme withe typeface and copy on reverse.

Above: Some reference research images of some type based posters, books etc from the 70′s

I also tried my hand at printing out the striped shape and photographing it to create a curve. However, I wasn’t sure what to do with it beyond this and didn’t think it looked right when adding text...a bit amateury.

Typography Tuesday

Following in a long line of 20th-century designers who worked on the concept of modular design for the alphabet, including Theo van Doesburg, Jan Tschichold, and Josef Albers, early in his career American experimental artist Dana Atchley (1941-2000), most noted for pioneering an art form known as “Digital Storytelling,” produced his own modular design theory in ABC Design published in New York by Wittenborn and Company in 1965. The book was published in an edition of 200 copies designed by Atchley and screen printed by Gerald Thornton.

Atchley notes that “The alphabet can be made from three basic lines: straight, slanted and curved. These are the different lines that are used to make a stencil. Letters and designs can be made with the stencil. Some letters have only one part; others, like g, have as many as six parts.“ He goes on to note that “The three basic stencil shapes can also be used to make designs, symbols, signs, and drawings,” and presents several examples. The book was published with a plastic stencil sheet for readers to experiment with their own designs.

Vintage GALT TOYS 

I am currently resisting the urge to buy a hole mess of retro games and toys on eBay! I love not only the simple design of these interactive games, but also the use of typography in the packaging. I particularly enjoy the chunky and playful ‘Picture Cubes’ titles. Also noted the ‘Upside Down’ jigsaws clever placement of the word upside down, in order to convey the literal meaning and purpose of the game. 

Also to add (before I am told off :P) the ‘Golf Winks’ game is by a company called Waddingtons, but I just had to include for its use of modular pieces.

Leuchtturm1917 Dotted A5 sketchbook.

MODULAR TYPOGRAPHY BRIEF  A-E

Modular Type is constructed from a limited amount of dots, lines and shapes that can be flipped and manipulated to form each letter/character of the alphabet. It is a very geometric, and uniform process of creating a minimalistic font and is a great way to dip ones toes into Typography. 

Type Setting Play | Back of Modular Type Poster

I knew immediately after submission that I had not pushed the back of my poster design to its fullest. I had spent a really long time focussed on the look and feel of the front, trying hard to capture that 70′s look in its design and appearance. After speaking with my tutor I realised that I needed to look at exploring the core of the task, type setting and try looking at simplifying the layout of the back design whilst exploring different systems. 

With this in mind I wanted to look at some different outlets for inspiration and stumbled upon the book ‘Sainsbury’s Design Studio 1962-1977 | Own Label’ by Jonny Trunk, which is now one of my favourite books on my shelf. I just adore late 60-70′s graphic design and this book is filled with the old packaging and marketing from Sainsbury’s that has been carefully curated over the years.

The things that were standing out to me the most were the obvious use of grids, clean typography, bold blocks of colour and simple shapes. Yet, despite seeming simple, most of the designs are varied and daring in their approach to certain products, ie the use of simple circles on the corn flakes box. This creative direction was adopted by Sainsbury’s under the creative head Peter Dixon. Whilst some of the pieces could perhaps be seen as a little lacklustre, I just feel drawn to the colourful, simplistic and structured look of the designs that just shout 70′s. 

So, I turned again to my type setting for my poster. With this book as my main reference I tried my hand at some different layouts, using grids and just black and white with simple shapes to block out my layouts initially.

Backs 1,2 & 3, I created a grid to play with that pulled from the layout of the front design of the poster. This proved very effective in creating consistency and gave me more scope for placement ideas.

Back 4 & 5, I wanted to somehow incorporate more of the modular type into the back as the front design relied heavily on the feel and inspiration behind the typeface. In the design below I tried using justified text (probably to my tutors dismay) as it felt suited to the grid and structured feel I was trying to capture. However, I am still unsure exactly on the proper system to set this type of text correctly.

Back 6 & 7, Modular grid, added in a simple shape, and showing off the numbers to encapsulate the era. Again, a grid is used to type set the information on the right to the same alignment as the front design. 

Back 8,9 & 10, Using object elements to create blocks of text and define and bring a little hierarchy to certain aspects of the information. 

Not sure how well V8&9 sit next to the front poster design, and how well all 3 communicate the typeface as a whole as the only feature of the letters is now purely the word ‘donna’ on the front, though I do enjoy the randomised system of version 8&9.

Back 11, 12 & 13, I really enjoy version 13 here, as I think it shows off the modular type in a bold and fun way. The block of text sits visually nicely to me in alignment with the grid of the front poster.

Reflection, All the back designs I have intentionally tried to restrain myself and keep it simple and structured, avoiding too much texture or added elements that may over busy the design. The focus is on the type setting and exploring several layouts that could sit well with the front poster. I mostly have used simple blocks of text, not veering too much into playing with the sizing or weight of certain information. I found myself enjoying playing with white space, and trying hard not to fill every corner of the design with other elements. 

Modular Typography / Refinement

Modular Typography - Looking for shapes

After looking through and collating tons and tons of interior images from the 70′s, my starting point for creating my modular type was take some of the images I had and draw out some of the shapes that I was seeing. I was really enjoying the dramatic shapes of the curves in the lights/lamps, the use of lines and wood panelling and the overlapping shapes creating fun and bold patterns. *ignore the parcelforce number :P 

below : I traced and cut out some of the shapes to manually play with in my sketchbook before photographing and taking into Illustrator. This gave me a good feel for what shapes to work with. 

I then brought some of my sketches into illustrator to create some of the shapes. I really liked the long panel of vertical lines that was inspired by the wooden panelling and the long line patterns I was seeing. I liked the idea of overlapping the shapes too so certain parts were showing through. 

My first attempt at pulling a word together from the shapes above, subconsciously using the word ‘Home’ as I was looking at interiors. I did enjoy this, but it wasn’t screaming 70′s enough to me and felt more minimal, sci-fi-ish. Myabe it was the circle with the dot making me think of 2001: A Space Odyssey. 

above : I found a lot of inspiration on certain sites such as fontsinuse.com and a forum I stumbled upon where people had collated images from 70′s interiors. Inspired by the typography seen in John Creasey novels from late 60′s (utilises the typeface, Filmsense)  I decided to try making my typeface more rounded but try keeping the vertical panel too. I wasn’t sure on the bottom block shape as it was making me think of kids building blocks. 

You can also see examples of my struggles with the letter ‘S’ which I in my final alphabet I am still unsure of, it just turns into a capital letter and feel I must be doing something wrong there. I also struggled with the number 2 and the letter ‘V’ so I am not 100% on the outcome of those wee guys. 

I settled on creating a lower case alphabet as it would give me more scope for rounded forms. Using line guides to ensure I had a baseline etc I first made a typeface without any flower accent, but enjoyed seeing that fun aspect in some of the examples I had shown in my mood board, and so created a simple daisy shape to attempt to use within the letters.

Below is what I think will be my final modular typeface design. It definitely needs some small tweaks here and there, and I am unsure if I followed the rules 100% when pulling the shapes together, but I really enjoy the outcome and think it does capture the look and feel I was going for. You tend to see a lot of bold colours, especially orange and yellows, in 70′s interiors so I decided to adjust the colours and went with a really bold summery colour palette to match the daisy imagery.  

I decided to name my modular typeface, Donna. After Donna Pinciotti in one of my favourite shows, That 70′s Show and used the daisy image to create a pattern to compliment the typeface. 

BRUNO MUNARI

REFERENCES

Casati Gallery. (n.d.). Bruno Munari Biography. [online] Available at: https://www.casatigallery.com/designers/bruno-munari/ [Accessed 22 Sep. 2020].

Multiple Identities of a Face. (2014). Bruno Munari: Drawings of Faces. [online] Available at: https://hafiprocessjournal.wordpress.com/2014/10/16/bruno-munari/ [Accessed 22 Sep. 2020].

Wikipedia. (2020). Bruno Munari. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Munari [Accessed 22 Sep. 2020].