Typographically Brody

Well, Project II in Typography was to develop a typeface that mirrored the style of a designer of our choice. I chose Neville Brody. After developing your letter forms, we had to create a poster advertising said designer.


I knew from the start that I wanted to make really thick, minimalistic letters that showed off the recognizable style of Brody.

• Most of my inspiration came from the image to your right. Despite the fact that Brody often involved complex backrground to stand in contrast with his simple letters, I was drawn to this simple design as well.
• Initially, the stacked style of the Freedom poster was what I was going for, but with my letterforms, "Neville" would become "New lle" or "Nev hle" It just didn't look right. It was a rough issue with my letters that had no solution.
• Also take note that BOTH posters involved vertical type which I brought into my poster design as well.
  
• Lastly, I want to add that my secondary typeface was Petita Bold - happily suggested by my Prof. It works well to mirror the distinct forms of my characters and the x-height ratio and what not.

Overall composition, I really wanted to use a strong grid layout so I figured a circular layout would serve well to drag the viewers eye around the page. Everything on the page aligns with something else, and in a way that creates a circular motion. Also, I paid close attention to the negative space that weave through the positive to almost create a Z-like form, I thought it added a bit of visual interest.
I chose the colors I did beacuse Brody liked bold colors and I felt like it really stood out. My overall idea for the poster is that Brody did things differently and he did them in a way that you could not ignore. So, why Brody? ... because he's Brody. That's why.

After critique, however, I came away quite defeated. My grid is apparently weak, and I have "dead ends" in my composition. My colors don't work and the only good thing about it is my letter forms. I was really proud of the work I did and excited about the conscious choices that I made. But after hearing the criticism, which was not entirely off-base (so don't think I'm saying they were wrong), I began to see the flaws... I recognize the fact that my piece was not flawless, or even close to being awesome, but I felt as though I accomplished nothing.

Here it is: (just ignore the crop marks on the side... I had to take a screen shot on my PC because I didn't save this as a JPG...ha)