I’d like to introduce a typeface poster I designed. This poster was originally designed for a typography class. It was later elected into the spring show at the University.
This poster is about a typeface called Bembo. Bembo is a serif font, classified as an Old Style because of its short, bracketed serifs and angled top serifs. Bembo punches were cut by Francesco Griffo around 1495. The face was first used in a book by ltalian poet Pietro Bembo. The typeface Bembo seen today is a revival design under the direction of Stanley Morison in 1929. It is considered a classic typeface for expressing formal tradition in typographical design and a good book face.
The reason I chose Bembo to make a poster was because Bembo is one of the most beautiful typefaces in my opinion.
I wanted my poster to resonant Bembo’s style. I used soft elements, for example, curved lines instead of straight lines, in the design. I decided to put the letters “B, e, m, b, o” on the poster in a counterclockwise order, then added a bigger “o” to loop in all the letters. I kept the first B in uppercase letter form, and all the other letters in lowercase letter form. Then I adjusted their sizes and made them into different shades of grey to give the whole poster some variation and depth. The smaller “o” has the darkest color, while the bigger “o” is the lightest. I also made these letters partially transparent, so even though the letters are partially overlapping each other, viewers can still see through and tell what they are. This arrangement provides the poster lots of fun and elegance.
I then used twenty-six uppercase letters from A to Z to form the left-leaning axis for the darker “o” to place emphasis on its oblique stress. On the left side of the axis, I used regular and italic forms of Bembo for words “Old Style” and “A True Classic” respectively. On the right side of the axis there is a one-hundred-word paragraph description of Bembo typeface.
On the top left corner of the poster are “1495 Francesco Griffo” and “1929 Stanley Morison” to give attribution to the two designers of the Bembo typeface.
Kerning, tracking, line spacing and alignment were carefully considered during the design process.
Finally, I chose a light yellow background color with a paper texture to mimic a yellowish book paper, as Bembo remains one of the most popular book types. This completes the design for the Bembo poster.
