Currently working on a personal project…The idea is that it is a wheel you spin a pencil on to randomly choose a typeface. More fun than anything practical really and hopefully will be a good typeface reference guide as well. Not done yet, but any thoughts welcome…be great to hear what one anyone prefers. I like the black and white version myself…
I recently did this vector artwork for a project which eventually didn’t get used, so if anyone wants to borrow it they are more than welcome. A credit is always nice but not to worry if its not possible. Hope someone finds it useful. Click here to download.
Frutigers grid plays a large part in typography in the modern design world. Essentially it is a way of labeling type weights without the words bold, heavy and light. However is also tells the amount they are condensed or extended. In this article we explain how this system works and best practices within it.
Frutigers grid was first introduced in 1957 with the Univers type family. It became even more well known with the massively popular helvetica Neue. Essentially it was created to reduce the confusion to other labels such as bold, thin, light, heavy, and black. It looked to introduce a more elegant modernist system through numbers (something popular within the Bauhaus art movement at the time). It provides a system of structure order and elegance around its typefaces.
Though it can look a little complex at first, it is actually a really easy and logical system. Basically, the first number in the system refers to the character weight. 2 is the thinnest and it goes all the way up to 9, the thickest. The second number refers to the character width. 3 is the widest or most extended and 9 is the most condensed. Getting it now? pretty simple right. The final thing to remember is that odd numbers mean it is italic, and even mean it is roman.
As an example then, without looking at anything, we would know that Helvetica Neue 23 would be a thin extended roman font. the 2 means it is thin in weight and the 3 means it is the most extended. Likewise Univers 78 would refer to quite a heavy condensed italic font. The 7 means it is heavy and the 8 condensed. The odd number means it is italic.
Using Frutigers grid
The great thing about frutiger’s grid system is that it provides a good grounding for simple effective typography. For instance when using an italic font, Helvetica Neue 56, sits seamlessly alongside its Roman counterpart Helvetica Neue 55.
Another good practice is combining weights. It is considered good practice to combine weights which are two steps apart. For instance, if you were using Helvetica Neue 35 it would combine well with a bold highlight in Helvetica Neue 55. Likewise if you were using Univers 55, the correct weight for a bold would be Univers 75.
2 weights apart provide enough of a contrast. One weight apart is not enough, and more than two lacks the visual elegance and is too much of a contrast. Of course these are only guidelines and there are always exceptions.
So that is frutigers grid, hope you have enjoyed reading this post. So what do you think? Do you have other ways of using this grid system, or would you agree with these principles?
OK, so today, I am going to show how to produce an easy typographic illustration using photoshop and illustrator. The example below is of a face, but it can be used for anything really. It is pretty simple to do, so is a good one for beginners, but does takes a bit of time to build up.
First pick an image. I have chose someones face. The best images are ones which have a good contrast between the light and the dark areas. Now you want to simplify the image. The best way of doing this I find is by turning it greyscale and and then playing around with the brightness and contrast in photoshop (image>adjust>brightness and contrast). You can also try the posterize tool (image>adjust>posterize) afterwards to further simplify but start off with brightening the image lots and adding some contrast as well. As you can see this gives a simplified version of the image, leaving the minimum amount of contrast to define the image. Below is my image once simplified.
Now take this image into Adobe Illustrator. Create a new layer by opening up the layer pallette (window>layers), clicking on the arrow in the top right hand corner and selecting new layer. You want to place the image on this layer. Either copy and paste it across, or save it as a jpeg and place it in. This image will act as just a guide, double click on layer 2 and the layer options box will appear. Click the template tick bow.
This will make the image muck lighter, so we can see when we place items on top of it. Lock the layer too by clicking on the lock layer option next to the eye symbol. Make sure it is below layer 1, and now select layer one, which is where we shall create our illustration.
Now we want to start to place text onto of our image to create the typographic effect. Started by choosing some keywords. and typing them out in whatever font you choose. Then outline them (type>create outlines) and make sure they are grouped as the words or phrases. I have used baskerville. Its now simply the case of dragging them over and starting to build up the darker areas with the layers of text.
Use your artistic eye here. Don’t just make everything heavy, rather try and define which areas should be the darker shading and building up more text in those areas to make the effect darker. This takes a while, but just keep going and the image will take shape soon enough. You will also need to rotate the words or phrases and resize them to fit parts of the shading. You can do this by selecting the free transform tool on the toolbar (short command e) Try and do this a bit everywhere as it gives the image a nice freedom to it, making it more interesting and textured. I think it works much better when you have a high contrast between the type sizes. So basically containing really large words and also really small ones.
Eventually your image should look something like this.
Looks ok huh! Its actually a nice image in its own now, but I have gone back to photoshop to add some colour. So, save your file as an eps. Open up photoshop and create a new document and set it up to whatever size you need. Place your eps in as a smart object to the size you want it (file>place). Don’t worry, as you have selected smart object, you can still resize it without losing any of the quality.
Bring up your layer pallette (window>layers) and you will see your illustration there. I have added a gradient effect on mine. To do this click on the effects panel at the bottom of the layer pallette, and select gradient overlay. By clicking on the gradient image you can add any colours you choose.
To finish off I have also added some text with a gradient as well. I have used the font dubtronic.
I have also tried having the image only available through the text. To to this, create a text layer just below the image. Control click on the image (right click if on a PC) and select create clipping mask. The image will now only show over the text area below like so. For this I used a font called Pincoyablack.
So there you go – all done. Told you it was really simple. So let me know what you thought? would love to see any examples anyone else has worked on.
Recently I was asked to work on the branding for London Twestival, the London event of the global meet of Twitter fanatics, which helps to raise money for charity.
The guidelines were pretty tight and it needed to stay true to its heritage, but its a lovely brand to work with. Initially we wanted to use a roundel type symbol, but because of copyright problems we went for a simpler approach. The Twestival typeface almost looks floaty in its form so I liked the idea of it being up there with the birds, almost balloon like. Anyway, the project was lots of fun, and it was great to be a part of such a worthy cause. Images of the logo in situation below. Any feedback more than welcome.
Other logo designs
Photography by John Cartwright
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