#type pairing

B®️anding™️

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I used the website type wolf to look at contemporary font pairings.

as I was scrolling through i stopped and screenshot the ones that caught my attention. I was particularly drawn to the feminine looking, decorative fonts. 

This research is intended to support the lecture Mark did on font pairing.

Typewolf. (n.d.). What’s Trending in Type · Typewolf. [online] Available at: https://www.typewolf.com/.

These are some notes on the recorded lectures from Mark about font pairing, legibility and readability. 

We were to use up to two typefaces and I know with all the ideas I have thought up, Garamond has to be involved but we are to use Contemporary type (to some degree) and in coming across type that goes well together I was recommended to pair it with “Oswald” with “EB Garamond”.

What do you think?

Admittedly, a type house's role in encouraging good type pairings is rather a difficult one ethically. After all, they're rather deep in the business of selling type. That doesn't mean, though, they don't know their stuff.

Type pairing is as much an art as it is a science, as Ellen Lupton explains on pg. 54 of Thinking with Type:

Combining typefaces is like mixing a salad. Start with a small number of elements representing different colors, tastes, and textures. Strive for contrast rather than harmony, looking for empathic differences rather than mushy transitions. Give each ingredient a role to play…. When mixing typefaces on the same line, designers usually adjust the point size so that the x-heights align. When placing typefaces on separate lines, it often makes sense to create contrast in scale as well as style or weight. Try mixing big, light type with small, dark type for a criss-cross of contrasting flavors and textures.

Her advice—to follow the x-heights as a guide, to avoid combining familial styles that are too similar (like Helvetica Neue Medium & Bold), and to avoid combining two typefaces that are similar in some ways but different in others (two serifs like Garamond and Jenson)—are easy to follow. Contrast and continuity are key to creating a good type texture, which is what every long form document needs.

Why, then, is type pairing so hard? And why are there people who make it look so effortless. One reason is that good typographic designers can see beneath that typeface a particular personality they want and pull it out with a good pairing. In many ways, using a single typeface to achieve the same thing would be too on-the-nose, but by pairing contrasting type to create a specific mood, the overall effect is more subtle, and indeed, more textured.

Which brings us back to our ethical dilemma. If there's anyone that knows how type pairs up, it's Hoefler & Frere-Jones. Not only do they make tons of typefaces that work well by themselves, they also make a special point of including at the bottom of each of their family pages a visual guide to typefaces that pair well with your current option. What's more, in a 2010 newsletter, they threw open the doors to some of the processes they use in coming up with these pairings, showing how they mix together type to create a good typographic salad à la Lupton.