[P4] Final

[P4] 4

[P4] 3

                           

[P4] 2

[P3] 1

Whitney

Sans Serif font

Designer: Tobias Frere-Jones

Designed in 2004

Classification: Humanist sans Serif

History of Whitney

The typeface Whitney was originally created for New York’s Whitney Museum by Tobias Frere-Jones. With how the typeface was designed, it works well with both compact writing for small print and larger signage. The reason the Whitney Museum’s staff wanted a new typeface for the graphical language inside the museum was originally for future plans. The museum was going to be relocated to a different building that was designed specifically for the museum. With this move coming in the future, the people running the museum wanted to create a new typeface identity that they would implement with the move. With the new font project laid out, Tobias Frere-Jones worked closely with the designers and staff of the Whitney. The original idea behind the shape of the font actually came from one sentence. The sentence came up during the first meeting about the concept of the new typeface. The sentence was “It would be much easier to present the history of art as a simplistic line – but that’s not the Whitney”. This meant that the font they wanted wasn’t going to be a simple, straight font. They wanted it to have some character to it, and they wanted that character to be the same character that is found with the Whitney. With this, they proceeded to look at other ways that lines could be looked at. Landing on the idea of a zig zag line, they started making their font. After figuring the idea of the zig zag to drive the main influence of the font, the Whitney decided they wanted to work with the idea of using reproductions of art to show people about new additions to their museum, as they had done in the past. After giving in and decided to go with the single image approach that the Whitney wanted, Frere-Jones decided to work with the empty space more so than the actual images on the printing piece. From this idea came the creation of the ‘Responsive W’, which is a W shape that can be adjusted to work with different pieces of art. The shape can be slanted, folded, pushed, pulled, and many other forms of manipulation in response to the piece of art that it is paired with. This flexibility led to the creation of the W shaped grid. The W shaped grid allowed text and imaged to be placed within the zig zag shape. With the variation of sized of imaged or amount of text, the W shaped grid was flexible enough to change its overall shape to accommodate for the variation in sizes. For example, signage on walls of the Whitney could use these W shaped grids to mark exhibits throughout the museum. The W shaped grid worked by having the word Whitney in the left section of the ‘W’, or the first ‘V’ of the ‘W’. This space held the word Whitney throughout the museum as a fixed element of these W shaped grids. The second ‘V’ varied in size depending on the title or section of the museum area or exhibit. The more text there was to fit in this section, the deeper the ‘V’ would be to accommodate the amount of text. This is where the flexibility of the W shaped grid came in. Frere-Jones said that the reason behind this was that there was a universal truth about this, that in order to show movement, there has to be some fixed element. All of the design decisions impacted the outcome of the font. Whitney as a typeface is a thin font with a lot of open space. This is reflective of the W shaped grid that was developed alongside the font for the museum.

2004

Whitney was created in 2004. During this year, many events happened. President George W Bush was re-elected into office for his second term. Facebook was released. The Statue of Liberty was reopened to the public after being closed since Sept. 11, 2001. The first same sex marriage happened. Shrek 2 came out, that’s a big deal. I don’t know how the events of this year had any effect on the creation of this font.

Tobias Frere-Jones

Tobias Frere was born in 1970. He is an American type designer who works in New York City, New York. Tobias Frere-Jones was a partner with Jonathan Hoefler. Frere-Jones teaches typeface design at the Yale School of Art. He received his BFA in 1992 from Rhode Island School of Design. After receiving his BFA, he went to work for the Font Bureau, Inc. In his years at the Font Bureau, he created many of the Font Bureau’s best known typefaces. After his time with the Font Bureau, he left and began working with Jonathan Hoefler. While partnered, the two of them worked on projects for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times Magazine, Nike, and more. He joined the Yale School of Art faculty in 1996 and has been teaching there since. In 2006, Frere-Jones won the Gerrit Noordzij Prize. Throughout his entire career, Frere-Jones has designed over 700 typefaces. Among these are typefaces Gotham, Benton Gothic, Poynter Gothic, Poynter Oldstyle, and Whitney.

Bibliography

http://www.experimentaljetset.nl/archive/whitney-museum-identity

http://www.typography.com/fonts/whitney/overview/

http://typedia.com/explore/typeface/whitney/

http://typedia.com/explore/designer/tobias-frerejones/

http://www.frerejones.com/about/

http://tfj.fontbureau.com/

P2 Final

Out of order but its all here.

[P2] Final

This is my final poster. I really like how this turned out. The whole video game concept was fun to work with.

[P2]: 5

This is my type face specimen so far. I will possibly make some changes based on the feedback I get, but so far I am fairly happy with how it turned out. It is close to what I was expecting. 

[P2]: 4

My typeface is called Pipeline. I got the inspiration from playing Mario Kart and then going to do this homework, using the green pipes commonly found in Mario games as inspiration for this typeface. Pipeline is a heavy font, with think lines making up the letters. There are very few sharp points throughout this typeface, as it is made to resemble the curving of pipes. The ends of the letters are shaped like the ends of the green pipes in the Mario games. 

Keywords describing this typeface are pixels, mechanical, and direction. 

Pixels - This typeface could be found in a game, as it looks like it is part of an 8-bit game with the pixel-like edges of rounded letters. 

Mechanical - These letters look like pipes, having a sort of function for movements within each letter. 

Direction - Because this typeface is based on pipes, it has a feel of movement within each letter. There is a place to enter on the ends and then you can follow the path of the letter around the form to either another "exit" or around in a circle to come back to the place you entered. 

[P2]: 3 Pipeline