The proposal.

The Proposal

What is beauty in typography and what makes a beautiful type?

One question that every designer, whether a professional that’s been in the industry for years, or whether it’s a design student that has only really started designing, needs to ask themselves what makes a typeface good or beautiful. With having over 45,000 fonts on the Internet with more still being produced and developed, then we must learn where to use fonts, why to use certain fonts, and what makes a typeface worth using.

In all aspects of design, it is said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For centuries, artist have strived for ultimate beauty, and all had theories. For example in the renaissance period it was said that design that had the ‘S-shape’ in it, was beautiful. Even to this day, designers have ideas on beauty. Despite people claiming and striving for individuality, all aim to look aesthetically pleasing, and during a new season retailers churn out the same style garments, changing societies perceptions on beauty, and this creates the modern day theory of attractiveness. So what is the modern day example for people working in fields such as Graphic Design and Web Design. That is based on many things, but one of the major factors would be the Typography. Typography is the garment that words wear, so designers want their words to wear this season or certainly want it to wear something beautiful for it’s particular purpose. This essay will explore perceptions of beauty in type and whether there is such a thing as an ‘ugly typeface’. It will also discover what designers should look for in a typeface when trying to communicate a certain message.

“Clever graphic designers love to use typography to explore the interaction between the look of type and what type actually says. In communicating a message, a balance has to be achieved between the visual and the verbal aspects of a design.”

Typography is used to create a reaction from the viewer/reader. We are all comfortable with signs being written in ‘Helvetica’ due to its balance and legibility, yet is that the make up to create a beautiful typeface? Could it be considered that this well known font is boring, and not beautiful at all? Moreover, this study will investigate whether there is a certain set of rules in creating a typeface that designers can learn to make sure they are using the correct typeface. This field will look into the anatomy of letterforms.

Another consideration for this essay is whether typography can change a message due to it’s aesthetic looks. Can the look of the font completely change the message that is being conveyed. It is suggested that a typeface creates a personality, a character and a tone of voice. Potentially, we could characterise a family of fonts as a certain type of person that would help designers determine what typeface should be used in projects, to make sure they are using the most beautiful font for the task in hand.