- I'm a type nerd, I admit it.
I love getting lost in the details
of a Baskerville lowercase G,
or finding the perfect version of Sabone.
Topography on a poster is one of my favorite challenges.
Since the amount of texts will probably be somewhat limited
and some of the letter forms might be quite large,
I can fixate on the most nuanced issues.
The most common mistake that I see
when a designer applies topography to a poster is scale.
They will work on the computer and look at the screen.
It looks good there, so what's the problem?
The issue is reality.
The screen simulates topography on a small scale,
it seems tiny, so you make it bigger.
But when you print the poster at actual size,
the type is enormous and horsey.
Yes, it's poster, and yes, the viewer needs to see
more of the copy from a distance,
but not every piece of information needs to be huge.
It's okay to work with a size that assumes
that people use their legs
and walk closer to a poster to read it.
I find it best to print the poster out
even if it's tiled together in black and white.
The physical pronounce gives me a true sense
of the actual scale.
The more significant type on a poster is critical.
Large headline type is where an evil version of a typeface
or just a hideous font can sink a design.
It's big, so the flaws are made apparent.
Correct punctuation marks are always necessary,
but posters seem to be where designers lose all reason
and don't use the correct quotation mark.
When I see an inch mark, instead of an apostrophe,
I want to track down the designer responsible
and give them a book on punctuation and grammar.
I stick to the idea that trendy type faces
are like trendy clothes.
That multi zippered red foam leather jacket
was cool when you bought it, but now it's embarrassing.
I suggest working with good classic fonts.
I include Benbow, Garamond, Caslon, Bodoni,
Franklin Gothic, Univers, Clarendon,
and a handful of others.
All tried trustworthy and confident on that list.
A giant word in the grooviest typeface of the month
will haunt you for the rest of your life.
A word of warning here, all fonts are not created equally.
There are hundreds of versions of Caslon to be found online.
Like everything else easily acquired online for free,
some of these are not particularly well-drawn.
I'm old guard and believe in the value of hard work,
so I purchase my fonts from a reputable and solid company.
William Caslon spent 30 years
refining his typeface in the 18th century.
I figure I owe it to him not to use the version live traced
from a scan in 10 minutes.
The conclusion of all of this,
is that topography on posters matters,
whether it's large and chose every beautiful
and excellent refinement and curve,
or it's a bad bootleg typeface with poor and clunky form.
The scale of the poster exaggerates the negatives,
unfortunately the positives
display its excellent refinement with every beautiful curve.