Communication Studio: Typesetting

I started off this assignment by writing an essay about Plantin, the typeface I chose for the project. Plantin is an old-style serif font developed by Monotype in the early 1900s.

Main takeaways from research

• Plantin is an old style serif typeface that was heavily based off a sixteenth century font developed by Robert Granjon, a french type designer
• It was originally designed to work in Monotypes hot metal typesetting system, and is widely used as body text in trade and newspaper printing. It is still used to this day in various mediums
• Despite having its roots in the French Renaissance, its heavy, robust design makes it highly suitable for the everyday reader.
• Thick serifs, large counters that improve legibility, left leaning O’s, Double storey G’s, low stroke contrast, tall x-height.

A Deeper Dive into Readability

Lab notes on readability

Here, I am exploring different point size and leading combinations to find one that was most readable. I narrowed down to 9/12 and 10/13, which also seemed to be the combination that many of my classmates arrive to as well. For my future spreads, I plan to take advantage of Plantin’s readability by using it as body text.

Not shown here but I did end up printing everything out and seeing which leading was most readable. I have noticed that I prefer tighter leading in general, but I am trying to not go with that as wider leading seems to be preferred by most people.

• Font Combinations: I dug around my pre-exising font library to find a sans serif font that I thought would pair well with Plantin. So far, I was most happy with Work Sans, as it had a similar x-height and didn’t demand too much attention. However, Jaclyn suggested that I did more looking online, as she thought that Work Sans is a bit too wide compared to Plantin, which might be a notable discrepancy.
• Font Styles: I really liked how well Plantin’s bold and italics styles paired together. I don’t know what to do with this information yet, but I’m hoping to explore it further in my spreads.
• Columns: Around two to three works best. It’s best to keep each line to be around 5–8 words.
• Separating characters?: When I was playing around with using individual characters in my thumbnails, I found that highlighting individual characters made the font look less appealing. Plantin is definitely a font that is better than the sum of its parts, as its greatest quality is its readability.

Thumbnails

I started off by doing thumbnails in my sketchbook and then formatting it all on my iPad to make them look better. However, I found these thumbnails to be less useful because I didn’t use the grid, so I printed out the 12-column grid as guides to create more thumbnails.

Notes on Usage

When making my spreads, I wanted to highlight the use cases which makes Plantin shine as a typeface. I have noticed in my research that when used in body text, the bold serifs gives the content an old style touch, giving the design a vintage, tactile feel. Plantin is rarely used as heading font, but when it is, it feels very playful. On the web, Plantin is used to emulate an analogue style.

Despite these diverse use cases, I think that the general takeaway from these examples is that Plantin thrives in designs that are meant to feel tactile, analogue, and nostalgic.

Uses of plantin

Exploring Broadly

Variation 1

Experimenting with the basic half/half compositions. I’m using imagery that is evocative of the sixteenth century. (The top left image was a sixteenth century wood cut print and the top right image is a scene depicting life in during the same era. I like how both have an unpretentious, industrious feel to it. I think that at its core Plantin is definitely a typeface for the common reader.

Variation 2

This next composition is inspired by movable type in traditional type setting systems. I’ve been trying to do research on what sort of imagery was prevalent in the 1910s, and also trying to experiment with more dynamic compositions that break the grid.

Variation 3

I’m also experimenting with using collage techniques to communicate the analogue style of Plantin. This was fun to explore but ultimately didn’t give great results as it made the spreads look to crowded. I found these pictures from a poster about early 20th century printing methods.

Narrowing Down

Vicki said that she was more drawn to the half composition so I have decided to iterate on the concept. Even though I liked my spreads with type going across the page, I do agree that Plantin looks best when the characters are kept together.

I am also trying a different aesthetic approach to go with the trustworthy angle. Right now, the biggest thing I should think about is trying to get the letters I overlaid on the pictures to have meaning.

Fine-Tuning

This is the variation I settled on. I am still experimenting more with dynamic compositions and creating more meaning on the page. Right now I am struggling with integrating my form analysis with my letterforms. I think that having the letters bleed over the page is an interesting idea but is difficult to pull off.

I settled on this idea of having the letterforms be analysed in the image portion. A lot of time was spent tweaking and moving around each letter to create a nice composition. I liked how the annotations lead in to the pull quote as well. Below is the poster I brought into final crit on Thursday.

I liked typesetting and I liked Plantin! The most difficult part of this project was stopping myself from looking at other flashy typefaces and trying to emulate that in my spread. Plantin is a very simple, subtle font that is meant to blend in a little, and that isn’t always a bad thing! Despite its simplicity, I think my spread matched the form and tone of Plantin well, so I am happy with my final product. I went into final crit feeling a little insecure about how plain my spread felt, but everyone’s comments definitely made me appreciate the subtle nuances in Plantin that makes it such a great font. I struggle a lot with self doubt, but this was also one of the less turbulent iterative processes I’ve had in a while. I think I sufficiently explored with breadth and narrowed down on the right idea at the right time. Despite some moments of panic, I had a pretty solid design process, which is definitely a rewarding feeling. Learning about typesetting was also a lot of fun, and it feels great to have something new in my design tool box :)

Final Spread