Studio Brief 2 - Typeface Design - Initial Idea 3

For the following two initial ideas I have taken a reductionist approach to letterforms to reflect  my word 'succinct'. Both designs explore the idea of being briefly and clearly expressed by reducing letterforms in different ways whilst try to maintain legibility.

Web Based typeface

This typeface would explore concepts such as 'how much of a letter could be taken away whilst still being legible?' and 'which areas of a letter are most needed in identifying the overall letterform?'. The typeface would be used for web based communication and would only use sections of the original typeface which would allow the viewer to mentally project the rest of the letter to fill the gap.In social media this would be useful as users would be able to say things in less space and abbreviate things even further.

Halving letters

In my initial experimentation I was looking at which strokes or parts of strokes could be taken away whilst still keeping the overall form. My research suggested that the top half of a letter was more legible than the bottom half as there are more visual cues, however when I put this into practice with uppercase letters rather than lowercase letters it was not as effective across the whole typeface. Some letters were very similar and would probably be confused for one another when used.

Halving letters vertically

Using Univers as a typeface means the letterforms are very clear already. When halving the letters most letters are still recognisable, with some such as the E and F taking on a narrower version of themselves. However some letters with such as the Y,T and I have been split down the stem which makes them a different thickness to the rest of the letters, which looks slightly out of place. Things to take into consideration are which halves are used for which letter because some could be mistaken for the same letter e.g. D and O , W and V. 

Mixture of vertical and horizontally halved letters 

By cutting letters both horizontally and vertically this allowed me to have more control over which aspects could be seen from the letter. This I think is more effective than just halving the letters horizontally, as I was able to choose the distinctive qualities for each letter making them more recognisable. I also made sure that there was an equal amount of horizontal and vertical letters to create balance in the typeface as a whole.  

Vertically cut thirds of lowercase letters

Reducing the letters to only a third of the original forms does not work effectively, with some being completely unidentifiable even when put in context alongside other letters. Although this would save the most space the legibility has been compromised. I tried to include the most distinctive features of each letter, however some such as the w and x have only a small section left and letters like the m and n would be easily confused. 

Vertically cut thirds of uppercase letters

Again a third of the upper case letters has not proved much more successful, leaving too little for recognition of each letter.

Larger thirds, vertically cut of uppercase letters

Here I have experimented with using a third of the letter but horizontally rather than vertically. For some letters this is more effective than the vertical version so perhaps these could be combined to make each letter as legible as possible.

Using a serif typeface

In my research it was suggested that lowercase letters are more distinctive than uppercase with serifs enhancing legibility further. Halving the letters in this way, so there was a mixture of both the top halves and lower halves meant the general baseline within the typeface remained the same. This would mean when used in sentences there would still be some structure when forming words.  

Reducing letters to serifs 

Research suggested that serif typefaces are more readable because of the horizontal flow created by the serifs, with this in mind I removed most stroke within the letterforms which left the serifs and terminals. This is effective when there is serifs or terminals at both the top and bottom of the letter as you can mentally fill the gap in between. This also maintains the general form of the letter even without certain strokes. However when put into words I would have to be careful not to have close kerning because the terminals may be confused between letterforms making them less legible. 

Serif typeface reduced to singular strokes 

When removing sections from a serif typeface it emphasises the calligraphic forms within the letters. This particularly works well for letters such as a,b,d which could be easily drawn in one motion whilst still retaining the overall form of the letter. This is not as effective in letters such a the v and w as they are not as distinctive when removing sections so would have to use the original form instead, which is still one stroke.