Overview

This was a project done for my typography 2 class. We were instructed to make a type specimin book while also showcasing another element. Our challenge was combining the element with the type specimin in a fluid and well designed way. We could only design with shape, color, and the font that we chose. I decided to choose ‘punk’ as my second element. Punk was a revival of Dadaist typoography and was a perfect example of post modern design that still impacts contemporary design of today.

For the cover I wanted to flip the color scheme of the inside of the book on its head so you would open the page and get hit in the face with the yellow. I also tried to make the cover more laid back compared to the rest of the booklet to let the insides really shine.

I wanted to start this book off with a bang. I used a one column grid system at a 30-degree angle to maintain consistency while still being chaotic. I chose the colors out of a Sex Pistols poster and was heavily inspired by their designer Jamie Reid. The opening statement “fuck your rules” was both meant as an attention grabber and to show the punk designer’s response to the rigid rules of modern/ international design. I used the letters and the shapes to really emphasize the tilted grid system. Notice how each letter is labeled with the weight of the font in the family; this was done to help showcase the letterforms for any prospective buyer.

This spread was made to show off the different weights of the family in both form and typographic color. I do a pink color blocking to keep shaking things up away from the previous page.

This spread was the splash page/ sample artwork. The challenge was to create the cool spread out of only typography. I used larger letters to set the composition and background, and the pink to really emphasize the word punk.

Again I used color blocking to fight off visual fatigue. I created anatomy of the typeface with the carelessly placed labels too continue with the theme.

On the last page I used black color blocking to continue to keep things interesting while signaling a winding down/ the end. I showed off the full character set to show that the font would work in many languages.