Get a grip
Hair grips as type to illustrate an article on 1950’s fashion in W magazine.
type eh?
Graphic design and typography
Posts Tagged ‘ typeface ’
Helvetica or Arial
It’s amazing how many hours are spent in the debate concerning helvetica and arial. The thinking goes that because Microsoft created Arial in order to avoid paying license fees for Helvetica that this somehow makes the typeface Arial inferior.
The only useful difference is to know that Helvetica has many more weights available and so from a typographic and creative point of view that makes Helvetica far more useful to the graphic designer. But there is no evidence at all that says you can’t create good typography using Arial.
In the pages below, I’ve overlaid the two typefaces to show how similar most of the letters are. Enlarge the small thumbnails below for a closer look and click the image again to really get in close.
Helvetica is black and Arial is green.
[click thumbnails to enlarge]
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On my class website I have an interactive flash document that compares arial, helvetica, univers, akzidenz grotesk and futura.
It’s worth noting that Akzidenz Grotesk predates Helvetica by about 60 years.
Customize your letterforms
Nicki Minaj was on Saturday Night Live last night.
Lori, a student in my typography class last semester, introduced me to her when she did an editorial assignment that featured the rapper. Being of the generation not entirely familar with rap, I find Minaj’s lyrics let’s say … challenging. Does she have a dirty mouth? I can confidently answer yes.
Today I opened V magazine to find a feature on Minaj that involved original letterforms used for the headline and drop initial that were created for the magazine by Alex Trochut, which I greatly enjoyed.
[ V Spring 2011 ]
A new logo for Mugler?
Will this sans serif typeface, similar to Gotham, and with modifications to three of the letters, replace the script typeface that has been the visual identifier of the Mugler brand.
At the moment you can see both marks on the Mugler website.
In marketing we talk about brand signatures, and the top mark is literally that. The script is both distinctive and memorable. Characteristics of a good brandmark.
The mark below is a logotype, from the Greek logos meaning word. It bears a similar overall appearance to the Chanel brand. Both the letters E and L are common to both, the C and G are from the same family.
Introducing a logo that is so similar to another brand is surely not something we are likely to see happening anytime soon.
Stay tuned.
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type eh? 