When I first got the typography fever I did the predictable, I put Helvetica on literally anything that stood still long enough for me to take a picture of it. Most designers do this when they venture into typography for the first time. Then after some time I learnt that Helvetica was not suitable for every design brief, no matter how hard I tried to make it work. It lacked the character which was sometimes needed in some designs. It was suitable as a neutral balancing weight for more detailed and characteristic images or illustrations. An example of this binary opposite being bland and tasteful. I also realised that everyone else was using Helvetica just as blindly as I was. So I moved forwards and started to use other sans serif faces like Gill Sans, Akzidenz Grotesk and Meta. I learnt the difference between Grotesque and Humanist Sans Serifs and that Grotesque was typically for display type and Humanist was typically for body copy text. but my knowledge of type was still quite small, I only varied between regular and bold weights, and I had not fully explored serif faces. So when I got the New Visual Language project for my Foundation Studio Practise module I explored new typefaces like the humanist rounded face Info and the classic grotesque face Univers. I experimented with the light, italic and condensed weights in all different combinations and I discovered a wonderful new expressive side to typography which excited me with its possibilities. This new style I have found is neither Modernist or Post-Modernist; it is in the contemporary style category which I have discussed earlier.
I can not wait to see what I will learn next.
