For this assignment students were asked to select a single typeface and then design and produce a type specimen for their chosen typeface. There were no limitations on the content of their specimen.
A type specimen traditionally demonstrates a typeface in use, typically detailing versatility and highlighting key characteristics by displaying all aspects of the typeface (such as uppercase, lowercase, numerals, glyphs) in different sizes, settings, weights and styles.
Before students start the design process, they were encouraged to explore the typeface’s history: its origin, its technical, cultural, commercial and sociopolitical background:
Who designed it and when?
What was the impetus: why was it made, what was its intended purpose (body text, footnotes, signage etc.)
How was it made/drawn?
What medium was it made for (print, screen, etc.)?
How/when was it digitized?
Students could choose to deal with the typeface as a whole (i.e. displaying every single character, in every weight) or focus in on a single aspect, quality, or detail; be it visual, historical, cultural, political or contextual.
— CLASSIFICATION AND TECHNICAL SPECIFICS
Serif or san-serif?
Humanist, Romantic, Neoclassical, Modernist etc.?
— THE ANATOMY OF THE TYPEFACE
Look (thickness of strokes etc.)
Feel (robust, fragile etc.)
Typographic ‘colour’
Distinctive characteristics (ascenders and descenders, x-height and counter, upper and lower case, numbers, glyphs etc.)
— CONTEMPORARY VISUAL CONNOTATIONS
Does it evoke a particular time period or genre?
Student: Hannah Neal
Student: Shannon Dunn
Student: Shannon Dunn
Student: Chelsea Metz
Student: Olivia Meitz
Student: Hannah Neal