Evaluation

Designing and producing the Univers publication has been an enjoyable brief to undertake. Due to the nature of the brief there was much freedom to adopt personal expression in compositions. There was no constant worry of communication since there was no specific client in mind and it was about interpreting a functional typeface through more artistic means.

These artistic means of production meant that the publication was mainly made by hand through analog print techniques. The relationship between typography and art is explained by Ruder (Ruder and Schmid, 2017, p.38). The publication was a return to craft, and was a welcome break from the often use of a computer to design my work. Another aspect was that majority of these compositions were designed spontaneously during the process. It was a new way of designing for me that meant taking risks and trusting on your knowledge of ‘what looks right’ to create the compositions.

Having the brief based around analog processes also helped in bringing me away from the usual digital typesetting and digitally printed feel. It was more satisfying in seeing the immediate results of a traditionally printed design and its characteristics that come along with it compared to seeing it come out of a printer. Using the darkroom for typography was the most radical technique used in the publication. It was surprising to see how crisp the reproductions are and the possibilities to create unique effects such as the blurred letterforms.

This is the first brief over the course that I have worked alongside specifically during the design process. The benefit of working collaboratively in a brief like this is the ability to bounce off ideas one another constantly to develop the design. This brings on to how the brief holds an incredible amount of potential to be taken further regarding the use of its processes. Despite the numerous prints included, It feels like we have only scratched the surface in terms of what we can do to create artistic interpretations of Univers.

All in all the publication did set out to achieve the aim of the brief, and that was to see a traditionally functional typeface used for more artistic design. This keeps our perspectives fresh on typography and to see letterforms in a different light from our usual design practice.