A design can be made or be
broken by the choice of typeface. For over a century now, various designers
have found typeface to be quite significant because the well thought-out forms
of history are greatly amazing.
Futura:
Futura is one of the greatest typefaces which
still has equal importance as it had when it was first created about 90 years
ago. The designers of this typeface were in the look-out for just a “good”
design that was and still is, visually appealing coupled with ability to be
applied in a highly efficient society. The Futura font was create in 1927 by Paul
Renner. Largely influenced by the Bauhaus design school, he came up with a
typeface that had no elements of ornamentation and lacked personal characteristics.
Because of this, it had pure functionality. The font is highly based on basic
shapes of circles, squares and triangles. These elements improve its
readability which contributes extremely to fulfill its purpose. The Futura font is characterized by lower case letters that
arise above their capital ones, strokes that have almost even weight.
It is highly efficient in a number of ways. It is readable, standard, clean and highly stylish and lacks style. These characteristics have made most manufacturers and companies to create iconic effects by applying it. Among these companies are IKEA and Volkswagen.
It is highly efficient in a number of ways. It is readable, standard, clean and highly stylish and lacks style. These characteristics have made most manufacturers and companies to create iconic effects by applying it. Among these companies are IKEA and Volkswagen.
It is also used in film, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.
The only
weakness of this future font is that the width of letters such as j is very
small compared to letters O and W. This makes the font to fail balance when
applied in writing long banners.
Garamond:
On the other
hand, Garamond is widely used today and is a design that was originally made
during the 16th century. The original designer is Claude Garamond’s
Janon. The font is greatly readable, a trait which has enhanced its application
for centuries. Since it is considered to be one the oldest typefaces, it
carries with it a solid sense of tradition. It prides itself to softness,
attractiveness and rounded serifs that are elegant. It is also characterized by
strokes that are diagonally emphasized. Several other aspects of the font like
kerning, line spacing make font proportions and respective presentation to
rhyme in the face of the reader. The small eye of e and
equally small eye of a are some of
the unique characteristics of the font.
On the other hand, the top serifs and long extenders exhibit a downward slope. The font is suitable for offline applications like print and has the advantage of being highly eco-friendly since when used in printing; it highly economizes on ink usage. However, Garamond faces a major hurdle in the face of modern display technologies. It can’t be appropriate for web copy.
The development of Garamond:
- Garamond Monotype designed by Max Steltzer (1922)
- Garamond Stempel designed by Stempel (1924)
- Garamond Simoncini designed by Francesco Simoncini (1958)
- Garamond ITC (International Typeface Corp) designed by Tony Stan's (1970)
- Adobe Garamond designed by Robert Slimbach (1988)
- Garamond Berthold designed by Berthold
Different Traces of the G :
Different Versions of the Garamond:
References:
http://idsgn.org/posts/know-your-type-futura/
http://barneycarroll.com/garamond.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garamond
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futura_(typeface)
http://idsgn.org/posts/know-your-type-futura/
http://barneycarroll.com/garamond.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garamond
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futura_(typeface)
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