To begin this week we started by testing out some of our brand names that we came up with over the course of the week. We did this by each proposing 5 names and labelling each others on what we viewed to be the 1st, 2nd & 3rd best names.
Here is how people ranked my names.
As you can see it was a close contest between “Spire” and “Root”, ultimately “Spire” wins out due to 2nd and 3rd votes and I am very pleased as it was my favourite of the names. Daniel pointed out that compared to the others it is quite an unusual name and therefore it stands out. I think it conveys a large array of imagery and actually opens up a lot of doors in regards to wordplay that I could perhaps use in some advertising mock ups or maybe a tagline.
We looked at typography last semester in a more fundamental sense. This week we are exploring typography in regards to branding and what type can convey. We touched on ancient carvings and hieroglyphics like we have many times so far in this course, discussing their purpose and their importance in regards to the text. We touched more on the history of type, re-iterating what we looked at in UXD102 and how some of the language has carried on into the digital age such as upper and lower case.
Ultimately we are identifying these important milestones throughout the history of type in order to understand and identify the emotion and feeling of type, what type can convey. Tonality is shown in type and it is important to establish a tone of voice for a brand, type being the key factor of setting the tone here.
Daniel introduced us to type foundries. Organisations that create and sell typefaces. I always wondered where people find such cool and unique fonts. I plan to search for a few solid foundries that I will use as a resource for finding fonts for this project, above all I hope to stumble across a foundry that will follow me for life. I love the idea of working at a type foundry as a type designer, it seems to be the most reminiscent role to old design, typesetting for example.
Here are a few cool foundries I found online.
GT Typefaces Library Overview – Download Trial Fonts
Displaay - Displaay Type Foundry
When approaching type it can be beneficial to consult type classifications initially as to narrow down what you are looking for. We were introduced to a few different type classifications last semester but this semester we are looking at some more. One that stands out to me is Slab Serif. Slab Serif’s are blunt and opinionated, they mean what they say. I feel like they hold a lot of character and can see myself using something similar for my bank brand.
Here are a few cool Slab Serifs I found online.