Studio Brief 01, Logotype - Sans Serif Sophistication

Another way I could re-brand American Apparel is by adding sophistication and refinement like the serif variations through sans serif typefaces.

So within this selection of brands, what helps define them as sophisticated fashion labels are the narrow body width, tall x-height and all capital letter forms. Reigning Champ is the exception as a slab serif, however it still comes across as a modern brand due to its consistent stroke width that is characteristic of sans serif typefaces.

Slab Serifs

Sans Serifs

So above are some of the selected typefaces that could be used for the re-brand. For the slab serifs, I chose typefaces that had relatively thick serifs whilst I was looking for typefaces which had tall x-heights and narrow body widths for sans serifs. But after some consideration I realised that the slab serifs come across as the "old west". This does not appear in the "Reigning Champ" logo but because American Apparel has America in it, there are faint connotations of the "old west" that are unwanted. Despite the claim, I will still experiment with the typeface to see its effect.

What I noticed about these brands was the large white spaces in between the letter forms. Thus I experimented with that to see its effects on contextual references. 

Bebas

Bebas

GT Pressura

GT Pressura

Rockwell

The implications of the slab serifs do come across as the "old west" in my opinion. The thick serifs imply that American Apparel sell stereotypical country wear. So I decided to end the experimentation of the slab serifs here and to continue with the more contemporary looking sans serifs. The effects of the large kerning distinguishes the individual letter forms better and increases its legibility. It also gives the connotations of the brand being more upmarket and grown up because of the typefaces formal appearances. Thus I chose to narrow down the typeface choices to Bebas and GT Pressura.

Bebas

GT Pressura

Bebas

GT Pressura

  

Bebas

GT Pressura

Whilst experimenting with both typefaces I noticed an legibility issue with scaling down the  information text. The words became too compact and lost its ability to be easily read. Thus to tackle this issue, I simply increased the tracking and changed the fonts to a "book" type. The contrasting weights meant that the text did not merge visually with the logotype and stood out on its own.

Despite Bebas's success in conveying the image of sophistication, I felt that one its limitations was its lack of lower case letters. I think that the information presented in all capitals can be monotonous to read, especially on their website. 

The two typefaces reflect the two ways American Apparel could re-direct themselves. Bebas represents the formal, more adult route while GT Pressura has those while still retaining American Apparels in-formalities through the lower case font.