Padd Solutions

Converted by Falcon Hive

I am amazed. Books actually have a use. They have information in I might need. I have never read a book in my life, but just flicking through I found a good few examples of type and type characteristics.

I found this in a book called ' Stop Stealing Sheep and Find Out How Type Works' by Erik Spiekermann and E.M Ginger. The title alone intrigued me, so I thought id give it a whirl. It has a good amount of detail without boring you. One of the theories I picked up on was font characteristics which is something I looked at when generating Leigh's font.

The author talks about different moods being associated with different type faces or character styles. This could be in its physical form like case and weight, but also in the way it is displayed "Letters can stand at attention next to each other like soldiers or dance gracefully along a line".

I think the typefaces shown here from which I scanned from that section do have the characteristics we associate with them. However, this may because we see the word anger and also have the image behind to back up the point. Either way the typefaces do seem to portray the words we associate with them.


Anger, which is something I tried to characterise during my colour brief is quite similar to the one shown here. The author talks a little about the type of character needed to portray this emotion. "Anger, like doubt, can be described as a dark feeling, that calls for a black, heavy typeface. Anger is not as narrow as doubt. It needs room to expand, sometimes to shout out loud".

Another thing I picked up on was using font characteristics in the same way you would tell one person from another. Facial features is something that distinguishes me from someone else and the same could be said for type. Every typeface is different, whether the difference be vast or subtle. A bowl here, a serif there, it all adds up..

The silhouettes, for example, do not tell us enough about a person to give an accurate description of their personality. The same can be said for a missplaced typeface. It can give out the wrong signal.

However, when we are given visual hints, i.e facial features then we can start to read their personality and make assumptions based on our readings. Typefaces have personalities too and we should use them in the right way and if we do then the message we are trying to communicate becomes clear or even clearer.

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