Type Specimen Book – Alda

This is a spread from a type specimen book for the typeface “Alda.” This is a particular spread that stood out to me because even though it is somewhat busy and crowded, it is designed and put together very well. One of the first things that I noticed was the use of color, and I think the warm color scheme fits well with the typeface. I also like that the author provides hand-drawn experimentation in order to gain a better grasp of the typeface’s structure. From a distance, my eye is drawn to the top orange section, which displays the different variations of Alda, and I think this is a good focal point because the movement is then from the large display type to the more detailed body copy. This flow, along with the overall structure of the spread, does a great job expressing this typeface and its personality.

Specimen Book

The specimen book project was definitely one of the most interesting projects I’ve ever done. Before taking this class I had never heard of a Specimen book before and was ultimately nervous to take on such an abstract project. Turning out to be such a fun and artist way to celebrate type, this specimen book really caught my eye. This book is demonstrating Baskerville font. I love the color contrasts between the grey and yellow, the enlarged and exaggerated letters are very captivating and are fun to read.

Specimen Book: Futura

This spread is from a Futura Specimen book that I came across on the internet. This spread does an outstanding job of demonstrating the highly effective qualities Futura has to offer. It’s futurist and modern personality shot to fame in 1969 when the Junar landing took place and has been as popular ever since. Futura in this spread looks so clean and fluid, allowing it to be easily used whether for a moon landing or on a fashion magazine. Its simplicity is what makes it so unique and timeless.

Didot Type Specimen

I chose this type specimen book because I think it has a very simple yet elegant look to it, which works really well for the font. I think the minimal usage of words, letters, number and symbols on a page makes it easy for the viewer to follow. I also think having every other page in black and white makes each page stand out on its own while still having a connection to the other page.

Successful Specimen

A successful type specimen spread is well designed, clean, and does not include distracting elements that take attention away from the type itself. After searching on Behance, I found a font specimen book created Florentino Diaz.

The book featured a slab-serif typeface called “Serifa” created by Adrian Frutiger. The spread featured in the picture provided shows Serifa light in all capitals on the left, as well as its special characters and numbers. On the right side of the spread is Serifa roman being used as a large display size, while also highlighting its unique sharp characteristics.

I found this spread effective in highlighting the important details of the typeface while using minimal decorative detail or an extravagant color scheme.  Adrian Frutiger’s work is meant to be very legible and easy to read at far distance.  For Florentino to add decorative details to this book would be an inappropriate approach to display and analyze Frutiger’s typeface.

Type Specimen Book: Myriad Pro

I was drawn to Myriad Pro from a selection of older font books I found available digitally through Adobe.

An example from the book shows the text in larger, condensed, italic, and capital, among other various formats. The book keeps it simple, with a plain white background and paragraphs of texts in different weights, languages, and weights, as exampled below on an earlier page.

This font is quite sharp, clean, and simple, as it can be used in signs, tickets, maps, which it also shows in the book, which I found very interesting as well. The bold font used here still manages to let a lot be seen from a distance.

Type Specimen Book: Univers

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I was drawn to this type specimen book for a few reasons. Firstly, I love the incorporation of texture into the book, I feel like a majority of type specimen books I look at are mainly focused on color to display their meaning where the marble texture adds an amazing eye-catching quality without overpowering the text. The book displays an overall very clean feeling that I find I’m drawn to as a designer.

Font Specimen Book: Futura

This Futura type specimen book really captured my eye. It immediately screams, classy, yet fun, bold yet playful. The design of the right page really helped me imagine my own type specimen book, and how I wanted to show some of my display font.

I believe it is very successful because it allows you to look at the font as shapes as well as a typeface. It shows you the flow it is capable of having. I have a similar style of display type in my own type specimen book, because I think it just works so well at displaying a clear and esthetically pleasing look.

Type Specimen Book

I decided to use the typeface “Cholla” for my second blog post. The bright orange on the title page of the specimen book is what drew me in. This typeface was designed in 1998 by Sibylle Hagmann and is inspired by a cactus she had one encountered in the Mojave Desert. After learning this, I was able to connect the design of the type to the design and structure of a cactus. I also liked how the designers sampled the different styles using words that describe that specific cactus and the desert its found in.

Avenir Type Specimen Book

I found this to be a great example of a modern type specimen book. This one was created to illustrate the Avenir typeface. I think the contemporary design is very neat, and utilizes only three colors to give more contrast and a focus on the font. Avenir is one of my favorite fonts, and I think this type specimen book’s design is an accurate representation the more modern and contemporary design of the typeface as well. This specific type specimen book is very interesting to me because the simplicity of the only using letters in the entire book, yet the letters are used to create patterns and eye catching features of the text.