This week we looked at wordmarks and how we can change a typeface to be personal to our brand.
We started off looking at the anatomy of our chosen type for our projects. The anatomy of type refers to the different parts of letterform in typography. Each letterform has its own unique anatomy, but the following are the common parts of a letterform:
Baseline: The imaginary line upon which most letters sit.
Ascender: The part of a letter that extends above the x-height, such as the top of the "h" or "b."
Crossbar: The horizontal stroke that connects two stems, such as in the letter "E" or "H."
Bowl: The round or curved part of a letter, such as the bottom of the "b" or "d."
X-height: The height of the main body of lowercase letters (excluding ascenders and descenders).
Descender: The part of a letter that extends below the baseline, such as the bottom of the "p" or "q."
Stem: The main vertical stroke in a letterform.
Counter: The partially or completely enclosed space in a letter, such as the inside of the letter "O" or "P."
I found this task really helpful as I was able to use both my names and my chosen types to decide what I wanted to move my brand going forward and it also helped me refresh the anatomy of type from last semester.
We then started to learn about how different parts of the anatomy of type can be changed to help created a more unique branding such as the NASA wordmark which removes the crossbar, the Braun wordmark which uses an altered cap height or the amazon wordmark using an altered foot.
Next we looked at kerning which refers to the process of adjusting the spacing between two individual characters. Specifically, kerning involves adjusting the space between adjacent characters so that they visually appear to be closer together or farther apart. How much you kerning you use depends on the font or typeface. Kerning is important because it can help improve the legibility and overall visual appeal of a piece of text. For example, if the space between two letters is too wide, it can make the text look unbalanced or difficult to read. On the other hand, if the space is too narrow, the characters can appear to merge together and become illegible. A good example of when Kerning is needed is A and V, T and o or T and e.
Kerning can also be used to create a feeling for people such as wider kerning makes a product feel more fancy while tighter kerning creates impact. A great example which I think is really cool and effective is the FedEx wordmark. It uses kerning to make the E and the x closer together to create an arrow that represents the delivery of the service.
Ligatures are created when two or more letters are joined or combined into a single glyph. The letters in a ligature are typically adjacent to each other and found in certain types of fonts or typefaces. They can be used to improve the visual appearance of a string of text or name by reducing the amount of white space between certain letters, and by creating a more unified and harmonious look. Ligatures can also be used to improve legibility and readability by preventing certain letter combinations from appearing awkward or confusing.
To get an even better understanding of the use of kerning, ligatures and other typographic elements such as hidden meanings we completed an exercise where we got 8 words and had to make them visual to their typographic meaning: