- You've heard me suggest that,
as a rule, you keep your typefaces conservative.
This is my rule of thumb, whether I'm
including a mark or not.
But if you haven't done this much, here's the temptation:
when you're looking at a page of typefaces,
the ones that catch your eye
will tend to be the showy ones.
The conservative faces will look really plain,
until you see them put to work.
What you're seeing here
is a beautiful design from designer
Karen Barranco for LeSanctuaire,
which is a high-end, retail kitchen boutique.
Even gourmet kitchens have an earthiness to them,
so in designing a logotype, Karen was looking for
earthy and elegant both. And to get there,
she had to wade through a lot of faces.
Baker Street could be great.
It has quirky little terminals and letter forms.
Kind of kitchen-y.
Dominus is hand-tooled, which
could express the wood and tool
character of a kitchen.
Papyrus has its famous, or infamous, texture.
Santis has super-thin lines,
which can be very elegant.
And Mrs. Eaves, in comparison,
is fairly plain. But the plain one is the right one.
And I have to say, not always,
but plainer than you think. And it's like,
how do you know? What makes it tricky?
Is it you're viewing type black on white
in an undifferentiated format?
Type in use, though, out in the world
acquires a lot of character.
So, here's her setting
with the deep red "Le,"
and here's her tagline.
Gorgeous! See how grown up that looks?
It has that understated gourmet look and feel.
Recognizing the character in the plainer typefaces
is almost always something that comes with practice.
Absolutely worth learning.