Faces in Type by Tara Asadi

Why I chose this idea:

For the infographic project, where we had to showcase understanding of the typography timeline, I discovered the “Faces in Type” idea through brainstorming and sketching. I thought it was a playful twist on the infographic and was also a way to illustrate my learning of type, as each notable type category was linked to a design figure in history.

What I tried to incorporate:

For my idea, I tried to create “Faces” out of the different Type categories that were created throughout history. Each face is supposed to represent the creator (or most famous influencer when we get to the sans-serif fonts) of the type. The style of the type was also meant to reflect in how the face was drawn; for example, Firmin Didot and Giambattista Bodoni are made of shapes that resemble their own font, with serifs included to illustrate the hair. It was quite an abstract approach to drawing the faces but I wanted the type to be center stage mostly. Furthermore, the progression of time follows with how you would read the title, as you can tell with the type becoming more modern over the course of the title.

As for use of color, Red was a reoccurring color throughout type history I found. It was present with Johannes Gutenberg as he re-wrote certain sections of his published bibles by hand in red ink; it was also present, centuries later, with Max Miedinger in his design works. The lines in the background was a style that mainly showed up in the earlier portraits of some of the figures, like Nicholas Jenson and Aldus Manutius. I incorporated it in the infographic to add some positive space and direction to the overall timeline.

Idea Development:

My original idea was to do the poster in portrait rather than landscape, however, after receiving feedback and experimenting, I found that landscape allowed me to illustrate my idea more easily. Looking back, the portrait format felt strict and didn’t really incorporate the faces well, as they would’ve felt like they were floating in air rather than in a group setting as shown in final product.

Overall Conclusion:

I found the brainstorming fun and I truly like the idea I came up with. It was definitely challenging creating faces in a similar style to the letters, especially ones that resembled their creators, but I enjoyed the process. My favorite portraits have to be of John Baskerville and Eric Gill. Although my intentions were to make a more abstract creation from the beginning, it feels a bit lacking in detail and I could’ve placed the smaller text in more meaningful places that would’ve made it more cohesive unified. Overall, I would give myself a 8/10 as I brainstormed and researched a lot to reach the final execution.