Sunday 16 September 2012

Adventures in Fontland...

Having decided on a name I needed to decide upon a 'look' for the magazine.  I had assumed, as most of my influence is from vintage children's illustration, books and magazines, that my own would be of a similar look.  However choosing fonts has had an interesting influence on my decision.

I found this dust jacket from a book all about cooking with Spam, which, funnily enough, was being thrown out.  I HATE Spam, but I love the graphics, the colours and fonts they use - and lo and behold, who'd have thunk it, Spam became a bit of a guiding light...


It reminded me hugely of a very 80's, graphic style that, probably through osmosis, I really love.  Strong primary colours, rainbows, huge curved lettering - I decided to see what I could find on the Internet that might satisfy my nostalgia or further spur me on...














...and that's when it dawned on me: everything I loved in the 80's came from America (including Cricket Magazine!).  I'm not at ALL sure what effect this knowledge is going to have, but I DO know that I want my Magazine to be inclusive and certainly not leaning towards a specific country in an era that has been and gone!  So I am reassuring myself that I will only borrow aspects of the bits I like...

Free Fonts:

I went online to have a look at what fonts were out there and found a cornucopia of free fonts - having had no real need for extra-curricular fonts before, I had no idea that they were out there - I've been missing out!  Here are just some of my favourites that I'd like to use for the Magazine:












As you can probably tell from this Blog's header, I've pretty much made my decision.  I love the geometric, angular, in-your-face qualities of this font: 




I like how the OLO looks like a nose and glasses - that's something I need to look at for a logo or continuous little cartoon character that pops up throughout the Magazine.  




I also love how the A's look like Mountains.  It still has that 80's vibe about it but more in a way that some of the best bits of 80's graphics and design have come back into the current mainstream.  I really think it works and I'm pretty excited about it!





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