Today I watched a 20 minute lecture by Erik Spiekermann on Vimeo about typefaces and their use on-screen and gathered the understanding as seen below. You can also watch the lecture here: Creative Morning Berlin #13 - Erik Spiekermann
Screen Resolution and Type
Different screens produce different results in terms of on
screen fonts; quality and sharpness of the screen can possibly make or destroy
the effectiveness of the typeface on screen. This is a risk that is inevitable
to take. The answer is to compromise on choosing a typeface, which will hopefully
balance between the two ranges of screen resolutions being most commonly used
at the time. As time progresses this will hopefully make choosing typefaces for
on-screen media much simpler as the range of resolution available to TV and PC
monitors increases and therefore lowering the price of earlier models and
reducing the gap to which viewers have their screen resolution set at.
Branding Ideas - Apps
We more then ever use paper to quickly create sketched out
ideas – this then gets transferred to a mock-up “dummy” upon the computer using
a tool called Keynotopia – this is a recourse which can be very helpful in
terms of creating quick digital mock-ups for prototype iPhone apps. Using this
enables you to create the design in keynote and transfer it onto your phone
before moving onto the coding of the app. Antetype is another online recourse
in which you can create prototype visuals for apps to be viewed on any type of
screen.
Branding and Type
Branding is made clear on the Volkswagen app he helped to design due
to use of colour and typeface choice. The consistent use of a typeface within a
brand and of certain colours can bring to mind an instant identity.
Red Bull’s app is also branded by colour and use of a
particular typeface. And the design is mirrored across onto their website. These
examples are actually native Apps as opposed to web apps, so the type is
embedded into the software so it cannot be stolen.
Poster design – for the Red Bull music academy posters they
chose to create very anti-branded designs, this is because Red Bull as a brand
has very much an ethic of whatever you want to do, you can do it. It is for the
extreme, fast and crazy sports and encourages individuality through this and
music. They found this really exciting as a project for a design agency as it
opened up a variety and breadth of possibilities to which they took on board.
The style of the poster is dictated by the style of music on show at each
particular music festival.
Screenfeeder app – Spiekermann explains that if they were to
use Helvetica on this app it would just bring to mind Apple and therefore by using
this alternative font they have given it a unique identity. It is fresh and contemporary
but yet references to the old typewriter to give a look similar to that of
old-fashioned telegrams.
With a further project he worked on in regards to television screen-based media they used a typeface based upon the typewriter, this type was clunky in form in terms of being asymmetrical as to reflect the old-fashioned typewriters. They then were required to create some iconography and so due to the choice of typeface they decided to reflect the look of this into the icons as to create a more “dynamic” look. To me when Spiekermann presents this idea it infers movement and natural form and employs a sense of approachable friendliness due to the hand-drawn look achieved by the aesthetic approach.
With a further project he worked on in regards to television screen-based media they used a typeface based upon the typewriter, this type was clunky in form in terms of being asymmetrical as to reflect the old-fashioned typewriters. They then were required to create some iconography and so due to the choice of typeface they decided to reflect the look of this into the icons as to create a more “dynamic” look. To me when Spiekermann presents this idea it infers movement and natural form and employs a sense of approachable friendliness due to the hand-drawn look achieved by the aesthetic approach.