Fonts get Physical
Have you every been working on a project- a poster, a flyer, an album cover- and felt like you just couldn’t find the right font? The average person will get about 50 different fonts with the purchase of a computer and operating system- which is more than enough. Most people will recognize these well known typographic choices:
But for graphic designers, these simply won’t cut it. Which is why we have gigantic collections of fonts that could be used for every imaginable project. When we are trying to convey of sense of social responsibility mixed with a youthful enthusiasm- which font works best? When we are trying to make a logo that “looks sort of like the competition, but better” which font do we use? Ligatures? Small caps? There are millions of choices out there from small typographic foundries who sell sets for less than $50 to Large Foundries whose offerings can reach up to $2,500 euros (Like this one.)
There are also many websites offering free fonts for download, though these fonts present their own problems. First of all, you never actually know if a font is free because the creator of the font intended for it to be free, or if it was somehow circulated without his or her knowledge and using it for commercial purposes could later get you into trouble. Some sites, like Abstract fonts, have recently incorporated a tagging system for the fonts they offer, differentiating between, personal use, commercial use and distribution.
Secondly, free fonts are usually incomplete, which you don’t find out until you are trying to type a word with an accent, or use numbers or punctuation marks. That’s always a disappointing moment.
But we’ve seen a new trend emerge in the past couple of years- physical objects as type. I first noticed it a couple of years ago at a graphic design conference I attended in Mar de Plata, Argentina called TMGD. Outside the venue in a grassy field they had placed large letters lit up- TMDG.
It was like a sculpture and people were immediately drawn to them. I later saw a photo of these letters used on postcards advertising events for that weekend.
I have since seen many examples of the “font as object.”
A postcard for an art show, several campaigns (Corrado Mattresses, Imagining Mozambique) from this Italian design group, and on many of the “Do not disturb” segments on Fox television.
So next time you can’t find the perfect font, think about how you might create it yourself- from clay, wood, cloth, legos, branches, metal or whatever else you’d like. Then grab your camera and start shooting. Now you can avoid having to add any 3D effects in Photoshop and the final image will be much more original. Viva “font as object!”
Tags: font as object, fonts, TMDG, typography
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