Contrasting Typography

This week I am going to reverse engineer a example of typography. It is a really great example of contrasting fonts. The author of this piece is Teo Tuominen The link was found here http://thedesigninspiration.com/blog/2016/10/17/off-the-beaten-track/

However the picture was linked to here https://dribbble.com/TeoTuominen

The link above is his blog so if you would like more examples of his work I would check it out he has a lot of great pieces of typography.

Marked up Finland Off the Beaten Track

As you can see this piece is pretty marked up. Like last weeks post I have left a handy number guide for easy reference. This makes it easier to tell what I am talking about.

Number one and two are different font types. Lets take a closer look at number one. Notice that there are no serif’s, a serif is the little lines on the letters. In the picture below I have marked some of the serif’s. Since the picture above has no serifs it falls under the font type of Sans serif, which literally translates as no serif. Also you can notice that there is no thick or thin parts of the letter unlike the L below. This is another attribute of the Sans serif.

Number two is also a type of font. This time this type of font is decorative. Notice how distinctive the font is and how it draws your eyes to it as soon as you see it. That is a marker of a decorative font. This particular font looks like it came right out of the 60’s. This font would make a horrible font to read a book in but it works well for titles.

Number three is size. Notice how Finland and off the beaten track are two very different sizes. While Finland is at the top of the page and would normally be read first “off the beaten track” would instead be read first because of its large size and distinct font. If Finland and “off the beaten track were the same size they would conflict, while you would still read “off the beaten track” first you would be confused as to which message was the most important.

Number four is direction. Notice how Finland is curved almost around “off the beaten track.” That is because the author wants to emphasize that all of Finland is off the beaten track. It also breaks up the up and down alignment of the words below making the two parts of the message contrast even better. Also notice that Finland is in all caps while “off the beaten track” is not, this also helps separate the two different styles of text and makes the contrast even better.

In conclusion this is an interesting piece of typography that has great contrasting elements. I think one of the things that stood out to me the most was how the piece only had two different colors (if you consider white a color) but it used so many contrasting elements that the two parts of the message seemed both distinct and different from one another. I think that this is an excellent example of contrasting typography.