Studio Brief 02 - Ideas for the Interim Crit

My chosen word for this Brief is Mysterious.

The key synonyms that I identified were

• cryptic
• obscure
• secretive
• unknown 

The key antonyms that I identified were 

• apparent 
• clear
• obvious

Based on Müeller-Brockmanns classic typefaces, these are the fonts that I believe have a personality 

• Bodoni - Reflects elegance and sophistication due to its contrasting stem thickness and thin brackets. Commonly used in high fashion brands and editorials.
• Garamond, Times, Caslon, Baskerville - Has connotations of tradition and maturity.
• Aksidenz Berthold, Helvetica - A timeless, bold, contemporary, able to be used on a wide range of corporate and advertising platforms.
• Clarendon - Mixes the old and new with its slab-serif style.   

Typefaces that display negative ambiguity

• Univers - very understated in its design as a sans serif, similar design to Helvetica and Aksidenz and its ability to be used anywhere displays its lack of identity.

On the other hand by following Massimo Vignelli's principles, I can interpret Mysterious as being positively ambiguous therefore creating a typeface that can be seen having multiple meanings.

Typefaces that display positive ambiguity

• Helvetica, Univers - Their versatility means that they don’t have a set personality for them. I did not include Akzidenz because of its bold characteristics. It is not as understated as Helvetica or Univers.

Another way I could interpret Mysterious would be to see it through its synonyms. 
To create a typeface that would display a sense of something at play and a murky atmosphere. Something along the lines of this typeface below 

Typefaces that initially represented this idea were Baskerville and Garamond due to their serif style and almost handwritten visual. The serifs lend themselves to be easily manipulated and being able to create a similar style to the font above. A handwritten style would represent the dark, murky almost witchcraft like motif better than a modern contemporary sans serif.

So right now, I have a few ideas of how I could possibly manipulate  
Müeller-Brockmanns typefaces

• I could alter the basis of Univers or Helvetica and make it as versatile as possible as a typeface to reflect the idea of positive ambiguity
• I could make the typeface exude the synonyms of mystery