Milo Whittle - Typography III

Is it a needlessly complicated font? Is it difficult to read? Is it difficult to find a sutable application for it? If yes to any or all of the above, I probably love it.

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Doing some digital experiments with different directions for this typeface!

I’m uncertain if I’m having more fun with the “Dark Circus” mood, or the Art Nouveau theme. I worry that both/either might be a little too typical, and that I need to explore more.

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Moving into some rough sketches and ideation with letterforms. 

I started in a space inspired heavily by Art Nouveau, especially with the looping, organic filigree coming off of sturdy forms. It’s an interesting thing to look at the Book of Kells and see how much Celtic art played a role in other art movements. 

My instinct tends to lean towards high contrast between thick and thin lines, so as I moved forward I wanted to experiment with mono-width lines. It maintains the organic curves and plant-like movement, but is slightly more legible.

...Or so I hoped. Trying my had at writing (an approximation of) one of my aunt’s favourite quotes (”One by one we must all file down those narrow aisles of pain” ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox), I found that it was more difficult to read than I hoped. I love decorative fonts, but my hope for a thinner, mono-width line weight was to make things more legible. 

I started to return to thicker shapes, and when I put a watchful eye inside the letterform for an “A”... I had a lot of fun. 

The phrase “Don’t Look Back” is a big experiment. I feel that every single letterform having an eye within it is... a little much. Still, it’s fun, and evokes a sort of “dark circus” mood. I hope to keep pushing this design, possibly only including the eyes in uppercase letters, or giving certain letterforms alternate glyphs that have eyes within them. 

[milowhittletypeiii]

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Kicking off Typography III with something I did over the summer, and a tiny window into the process.

Working at a local pet store (name withheld for privacy reasons) I was asked by my manager to rewrite a sign. By which I mean my manager looked at me at around 9:30am on a Saturday and said “I have a job for you. You know our sign?”

At that point I’ll admit I kind of stopped listening and started prepping everything. It was one of the best days of work I’ve had so far. That being said, “window writer” markers are terribly difficult to work with, and I had to clean this sign up a lot on a different day. Still deeply fun!