Rules for typography?
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- Quarstion
Hi everyone! I've been getting repeated talks by my Art Director over some type designs I've been producing this week. He keeps lecturing me for using too many fonts in one image and tells me the best typographers should never use more than one type family in a design - two at most. Also said there are certain rules about how to combine different styles & weights but isn't being clear on it.
But look at this gallery of type I found:
http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com…In each of those images, which to me are beautiful, there are sometimes 4 or 5 different fonts all working together. What am I missing here?
- ********0
- d_rek0
Show us the piece in question and we'll tell you.
- brandelec0
those samples are nice. show us yours
- ********0
Yah, it'd be more helpful if we could see what you are working on.
- ********0
After looking at the samples you posted, I must say, I wouldn't ever expect a client to sign off on work like that post-1920.
- ********0
using multiple typefaces from different families is really really hard to pull off correctly in my experience. Using one type family isn't a rule per say but it's a great guideline for amateurs
- moniker0
Those aren't fonts though.
- islandbridge0
Do read
- Miesfan0
Dude, this is Topographic things. And less typographic. Perhaps lettering even calligraphic.
- hellobotto0
Agree with dMullins. Type samples from 1897 look novel today...they didn't in 1897. Be careful using the past to justify the present.
That all being said...agree with other folks, it's hard to help without knowing the context.
- ********0
Subjective, depends on what you are doing, for whom, etc.
Show him this gallery: http://letterheadfonts.com/galle…
- ok_not_ok0
- if *squint} {
—visit
http://shirotokuro.c…
}detritus - lol thanks!ok_not_ok
- if *squint} {
- bulletfactory0
I think moniker has a good point. These are treated more as illustration than type.
That said, those letter forms and flourishes compliment each other in style; be it through similar weight or stroke, or through a supporting contrast of style.
These treatments are much different than trying to marry 4 different typefaces in a project for headline, subheads, call-outs and copy.
Would love to see the project you're working on
- bored2death0
Your boss is a modernist. You're screwed.
Just use Helvetica from now on.
- honest0
"This is for all you new people: I only have one rule...
NOBODY USES COMIC SANS
Or I'll kill you myself."
- mikotondria30
It depends which typefaces you're combining of course.
For clarity simple contrast is better. Play with it. Start with one, structure it properly in terms of heirarchy of what's most important and needs to be read first.
If at any point during the narrative flow it could use another 'voice', *think devices like that on commercials, radio commercials, etc, then try a suitably contrasting face, but obviously not something that doesn't sit right. Fuck, that's a totally artistic decision hard to quantify, but you'll know it when you see it if you have *taste*.
Typefaces are distinct voices - each message needs to be spoken with the right tone and pacing and volume and cadence and all the complexity that you instinctively use and understand in speech; too many and the message becomes muddied with too many points of view, the dynamic of counterpoint is lost; it's all about the message - if you notice the typeface then it's the wrong choice, it's a gestalt thing - the typeface should disappear amidst what's being said, a complimentary one should just alter the pitch enough so you notice that detail even more. Simplify, clarify, inform.- The more you study it, the less you realize you know.mikotondria3
- identity0
Your boss sounds like a modernist.
You seem to enjoy nostalgic, elaborate, headline-type.This marriage will never work.
- OSFA0
It all depends on the job you're working on...