How do you paint pictures with words?
One way is through font choice. Typography is an ancient art that has been practiced since at least the Middle Ages, when monks painstakingly authored copies of the Bible by hand. The first typeface, Black Letter, dates back to the 15th century. Many fonts from this time period, like Garamond, can still be found in use today.
When choosing a font, writers and designers are choosing a time stamp for their piece. The two main categories of fonts are serif (this picture highlights the actual serif in red) and sans-serif. Choose a serif font and you’re piece will have more of a “classic, traditional” feel. A sans-serif font will feel more modern.
My assignment was to create a business card using only color and text. We weren’t allowed to use images, so the goal of the assignment was to choose a font that conveyed our desired attitude and tone. I chose Bodonitown, a slab serif font available for free (!!) on Font Squirrel, a fabulous resource for quality free fonts (all fonts are hand-selected by the site’s managers). I choose Bodonitown because I wanted a font that paid homage to the classic fonts that have dominated newspapers for years but also, at the same time, didn’t feel outdated.
I came up with two variations. The first is one-sided and, in an attempt to accent my “journalism in a digital age” tagline, features my name written in the binary numeral system, the language used by modern computers. Click on the picture for a full-sized view.
The second version is double-sided. No binary writing, lines or boxes here, just straight text. I opted for bright colors so it would stand out in a pile of cards.
