The Project
This History of Type poster was completed for a typography course at San José State University. The requirements of this assignment were to research key steps in the history of typography, and to gather this information together on a poster with a two–color design (excluding white). The goal was to become familiar with the importance of typography in design, as well as focusing on hierarchy and organization.
Skills & Software
• Adobe Illustrator
• Experimentation
• Attention to detail
• Research
• Font Selection
The Process
I first started this project by researching the information I would use for my poster, and then sketching out an early design of how I would organize this information.
Once I had the layout set, I began designing in Illustrator, and came up with my first version as a way of visualizing all my information.
Then, I began focusing on the individual hierarchy of my design, particularly with the titles and dates of each section of information. I was mostly experimenting with color and size to change this around.
Finally, I made some minor adjustments to round out the whole design of my poster. I wanted to draw attention to the most important pieces first and then move in order of importance, so that’s where most of my attention went at the end. I ended up with a design that I felt balanced everything I was looking for.
Sketch
Version 1
Version 2
Version 3
The Purpose
As I mentioned, one of my main goals for this poster was my focus on hierarchy. Throughout my versions, I wanted to make sure that the most important elements were noticed first, and less important elements were noticed later.
I focused a lot on the word "of" in my title, trying to balance the negative space in the corner without drawing too much attention to it. However, "of" was seen as the most important part of the title in some designs. So, by using color, I was able to activate the space while preserving the intended hierarchy of the design.
Additionally, one of the focuses of my design was the history aspect. So, I chose a variety of typefaces to showcase history through font selection, in addition to the research. For example, the titles moves from Blackletter (Amador), to slab serif (Clarendon), to rational serif (Bodoni), to a geometric sans serif (Futura).
Within each information section, I used hierarchy as well as these same historical fonts. I used a combination of weight, font size, and color to blend everything together and create hierarchy.
