Type talk.

I created this ‘type talk’ to pass on the knowledge I’ve gained in various design departments and studios, helping new designers understand more about typography and design in advertising.

I head the design department at VCCP, an advertising agency in London. I've been working in the advertising industry since I left Croydon College 16 years ago. When I started in the industry it took me quite a while to find out about the skills of typography and how to go about designing for advertising. The only way to learn was by working closely with experienced typographers and creatives.
I thought it would be useful to talk about some of the things I learned in those first few years. Although if you're in the industry already some of this may seem basic.
The design department sits between the creative department and the studio. Employing designers with art direction, illustration, typography and studio skills. Sometimes I’m asked to talk about the department, to groups of account grads touring the agency. This type talk is a slightly expanded version of the talk I give to the captive audience in front of me. To start with, I point out the difference between the design department and studio.
That is a design department works closely with the creative department solving issues about the tone of voice of the idea. Whereas the studio takes the finished design and creates the artwork for reproduction. Later I talk about the things a typographer considers, how we are briefed, how we build the ads and the different stages of design. Then, I’ll explain why we get so excited about letters and words, why the ‘space’ is so important to us and what a typographer means when they say I need to kern.

Typography

Nearly all of us have considered some aspects of typography before, if only by writing a letter, compiling a presentation or typing an email, that’s because typography is simply ‘the considered arrangement of letters and words and the visualisation of a spoken language’.
Typography can communicate different meanings, control the way you read, create a visual composition, provide order to a page, give life to an idea, inform, document, persuade, entertain or get a response. Anybody can stick text into a box, but it’s craftsmanship and attention to detail that bring the piece to life. Typography combines art with craft, and is an important link to the history of communication. It’s an important part of our culture, and the crafting of typography requires an ability to focus on large issues and small details with the same care. The ability to see the whole and understand the working relationship of its parts is a useful problem-solving skill. To achieve good communication, it takes time and a careful eye, thus in the end giving life and personality to the printed page.

I know when I’ve seen a good piece of typography, it just feels right, a gut feeling. Am I right? Am I wrong? That warm feeling inside is the way to decide whether the typography is good or bad. Typography is subjective, like a piece of art, if you like it, great. If you have a feeling something is wrong with your typography, don’t ignore it, most of the time there probably is. Another way I describe typography is to use the example of the crystal goblet. Picture a crystal goblet, with some fine wine. Think of the goblet as the typography and the wine as the words. The goblet holds the wine like the typography holds the words, we use typography to enhance the words like the goblet enhances the wine. You see through the glass at the wine, like you see through the typography at the words. The moment you see the typography there may be a problem. This makes sense when we talk about setting large areas of text. But sometimes for headlines or advertising design we need to break the rules. To create a tone of voice we may need to put all the type in capitals, or reduce the inter-character space so the characters touch.

Any typographer worth his salt concerns himself with the tonal value of the page and will consider the following list of points:
1. Choosing a type face – After considering the purpose of the communication and whether the typeface is visually appropriate for the tone of voice
2. i.c.s. Sometimes called tracking or inter character space (space between characters)
3. Leading Space between lines, from the old lead strips used in metal setting. (also known as line spacing or line feed)
4. Word space
5. Space around text
6. Size of type
7. Length of the line The most effective is ten words per line
8. Alignment. For example centred, ranged left, ranged right or justified
9. Kerning. Which has a more detailed explanation later
10. Distance and angle from which the type will be viewed
11. The intended audience

All this in relation to paper, colour, size and where the piece of work will be seen. Of course a typographer will not refer to this list, after a while these points become instinctive. To the trained eye a bad piece of type just looks ‘uncomfortable’ the difficult part is correcting it.

Choosing a Typeface

Before we select a typeface we consider the feeling the art director wants to express. Does the type need to look expensive? Cheap? Fun? Or even masculine? Descriptive words are useful to the typographer because typefaces have personalities. After searching through the fonts we have or fonts on the web, we will choose various typefaces that resemble the descriptive words, we may end up with ten to twenty on the long list, then we look at this selection again and thin out the weaker fonts. I find setting those descriptive words or repeatedly thinking about them, can help to focus my mind when I have to look through my fonts. I use an analogy with shopping to make it easier to describe the feelings involved with choosing a typeface. When you’re looking for something to wear, you picture what you want in your mind.

You select several items, but when you try them, some feel wrong. When you eventually find the right one, it’s brain off, credit card out. Your gut feeling, or instinct tells you it’s right. This is exactly the same as finding the right typeface.If I only need a few words, and I have a picture of the font in my head, but can’t find a typeface suitable, I would probably draw it. This ad for Ford Transit is an example of when the only way to find the right typeface is to draw it.

Spacing and Kerning

To create text that is easy to read, a typo-grapher must consider space. The space between the characters (inter character space) should be less than the space between the words. The space between the words should be less than the space between the lines. Sometimes characters will not sit next to each other comfortably. The art of knowing how to balance the space between these characters is called kerning. David Kindersley summed up ‘kerning’ beautifully when he wrote, “By good spacing I mean, quite simply, that each letter should appear to be exactly in the centre between its neighbours. To me this is the only criterion.”

Design in advertising

Another way to describe design in advertising could be called styling; and the best way to describe styling is the creation of a tone of voice. One which is true to the idea. A designer does his research before embarking on a job, they explore background information on the brand; what are its competitors and where does the brand want to be in the future. Only then, are we ready to execute the design. This takes time, how much is often very underestimated. Another aspect of design we consider is to reduce uncertainty. Picture a signal connecting an ad and the person reading it; if the signal has fuzz then only some of the information will get through. We have to reduce the fuzz, ensuring a clear understanding of the ad. To reduce the fuzz we concentrate on readability, hierarchy of information and the response required.

Stage one – the brief

Most creatives bring a hand drawn sketch of the ad with some reference material to the design department; normally I like two designers to listen to the brief, as each designer will take something different from it, which gives the work diversity. It also helps us work collaboratively. After we have listened to the brief, we ask questions, for example: What does the creative want to do? Who are the intended audience? What does the brand want to say? What are the media? What is the media size? Are we working on print or interactive? What are the mandatories? Where are the ads going to appear? How much time do we have? Our main objective is to find out what’s inside the creatives’ head, and, become their tool to bring the idea to life and give the design its personality.

Stage two – the design

When we’ve taken the brief, we start to style and design. Sometimes we look at reference books and magazines for inspiration. We use a pad and pencil first, sketch our layouts quickly, get those first thoughts out of our head. Once those obvious options are out of the way we have a chance of creating something more interesting. I find it’s easier to get started if I put something down on paper and try to improve it. Every few hours we get together and discuss where we are with our designs to inspire each other. We create layouts using found images from the web, scans from books, drawn graphics, images from our own digital cameras, anything we can get our hands on to show the idea. The scratches on the Castrol posters were scanned from a metal desk in the studio. Sometimes our creations will only ever be seen by the client and will be recreated completely because of copyright. Photography or illustrations are only ever commissioned when the client approves the creative work.

Stage three – the master

When the creative is happy with the styling and the client has approved the ad, we recreate it with the commissioned photography or illustration. The typography and attention to detail becomes critical at this stage. The finished ad does not always look exactly the same as the one the client approved. In some cases we have created the final images ourselves. Normally we only create one ad in one size. Then the studio takes this master, checks it is okay for print, and adapts it into other sizes as required. At the end of the day good typography can have a huge positive impact on communication, and a piece of good design reduces uncertainty. Personally, for me the study of typography and the craftsmanship needed to create beautiful type is a continuous journey.