The Art of Type

“Cut through’, ‘stand out’, ‘own-ability’, even *shudders* ‘linger-time’, all phrases bandied about often in briefs for Book and Magazine covers, Brandmarks and Fonts by designers, agencies, publishers and Brands themselves.

All of these are important for the client in the never-ending battle for the eyes of clients and customers. The seemingly non-stop stream of information and media churning in front of punters means that any visual hooks that can be used for recognition and recollection need to be in a Brand’s locker.

How do Jelly’s type artists help with this? Hand or digital bespoke crafting has a dual benefit, it means that not only can the Brand or brand designer collaborate more directly in the creation of a Brandmark or a bespoke font, they can also create something instantly recognisable as theirs, something that can’t be replicated.

Personality
When it comes to hand-lettered or hand-crafted marks, personality is Queen (or King). Small nuances in the design and letterforms can define the mark in a way that are subconsciously received by the viewer, such as sex, age, attitude and demographic. This gives the customer an instant sense of affinity – and hopefully a desire to investigate further and identify with it.

Fonts
In terms of Brand voice, fonts are as important as Logos and Brandmarks. Jelly has worked with our artists and designers to create a number of bespoke fonts for brands over the years and we have now delivered so many of these that the process is finely tuned.

We normally begin with testing and developing a key-phrase or sentence (usually a strap-line) that encapsulates the brand. Once that has been tested and approved by the client we move on to create full sets of characters: letters, numbers, marks, punctuation in that same spirit and style. We will also need to be aware of any potential foreign markets for the brand, so that the appropriate marks will be part of the package. These characters are then digitised (if hand-created), programmed and kerned and delivered as a fully functioning font to the client that they can share to all their stakeholders for use throughout their comms.

In hand-lettered or hand-written fonts, there may be an extra level of craft, as it is common that each character in the font will variants designed and programmed into them. This means that the characters don’t repeat too often, which maintains the illusion that that the font is a hand-written message each time it is used. We have worked extensively with Alison Carmichael and Rick (Face37) on these, Brands are definitely drawn to them for that extra level of personalisation.

Why Experts?
Creating lettering and type, like everything else, has become more democratised and accessible recently, as the technology to make it has become more readily available. As with most accessible tech, the difference when it is used by an expert craftsperson is palpable. A background knowledge of typography, letterforms, kerning takes a fair amount of training and a really good eye, that cant be replaced by the software I’m afraid, especially if you are creating something bespoke.

I think it’s worth remembering that if you are creating something that is going to be associated with a Brand or an actual Brandmark then that is going to be associated with it for a very long time (hopefully). So in my eyes any investment in utilising an expert craftsperson to create that is money well spent, that outlay should last a lifetime.

Tech
Type is always evolving and the use of new technology and new media will always be part of its development. AR, CG, Kinetic and programmable type, realtime type, all of these are happening now and being applied to typography daily, it is a constantly evolving process and some of the most exciting briefs coming in reflect that.

However, amongst all that, hand-crafted type is as important now as it has ever been: brush and pen scripts, hand-lettering, calligraphy and sign-writing are not going away, they are just being applied in new and more creative ways, they are as popular as they have ever been.

Brands have always needed to look unique. The only way to truly achieve that is to create something bespoke – and this is where the art of type comes into its own.