OUGD404 Design principles: Who are you? Accents.

Following on from the previous who are you task, we were asked to represent 11 different accents through different fonts and point sizes using the words 'Who are you?' The accents we were given were:

Scottish

South African

Italian 

Texan

Mexican

Sommerset

Birmingham

Cockney

German

Chinese

Swedish

Scottish: Gael - http://www.fontspace.com/thomas-e-harvey/gael

South African: Tribeca - http://www.fontspace.com/david-rakowski/tribeca

Italian: Italianno - http://www.fontspace.com/typesetit/italianno

Texan: Rio Grande - http://www.dafont.com/rio-grande.font

Mexican: Burrito - http://www.dafont.com/burrito.font

Sommerset: Serif - http://www.dafont.com/serif.font

Birmingham: Emmanuelle - http://www.dafont.com/emmanuelle.font

Cockney: Matchbook - http://www.dafont.com/emmanuelle.font

German: Deutche Zierschrift - http://www.dafont.com/deutsche-zierschrif.font

Chinese: Gang of three - http://www.dafont.com/gang-of-three.font

Swedish: Tratex - http://www.dafont.com/tratex.font - With Arial regular question mark.

We all took our selection of eleven accents into the Design principles session. We got into groups of 4/5 and in these groups we rotated tables so that we were left with another groups selection of typefaces. In our groups we had each took one persons selection of typefaces and had to catergorise these into 11 piles, the 11 accents we were given. 

When grouping these fonts there were certain elements we looked for, for certain accents.

Chinese- Stereotypical Chinese fonts. emphasis on 'you' found in chinese accent. 

German- All black letter, all or most words are emphasised.

South Africa- Bold to represent deep voices, safari style, all capitals.

Scottish- Gaelic/ celtic and decorative. 

Texan - Wood block style and slab serif. 

Mexican- Stereotypical mexican fonts and mexican patterns.

Italian- Decorative, script, representation of elegance. 

Cockney- Quirky, light or regular and juxtaposed.

Sommerset- Serif, Flicks were the accent changes pitch.

Birmingham- Bold, informal, wide to represent that they hold onto sounds.

Swedish- Sans serif, influenced by things such as Ikea, also formal scripts.

we wrote on the back of each page the accents we thought they were trying to represent. 

We were then asked as groups what accents we felt we were most confident that we had got right, the ones that were most popular were German, Chinese, Mexican and Texan.

We returned back to our own typefaces and looked at how well the previous group had catergorised them. We found that even the ones that we were most confident with had gotten slightly mixed up with Sommerset unusually appearing in a lot of catergories. 

From this exercise we learnt that we should not rely on font style to represent an accent, for example using a chinese style typeface such as 'chinese take away' to represent an accent, as 99% of these fonts were not aesthetically pleasing, but play more with weight, and point size and which words or sounds are emphasized when speaking. 

In groups we came up with 5 rules that we should always follow when using or choosing typefaces:

- Never use more than 2/3 typefaces in one piece of work, or use one typeface and no more than 3 fonts of this family.

- Use fonts appropriate to their context. 

- When increasing the weight of a font increase the kerning otherwise the font will become condensed.

- Use appropriate spacing to optimize readability. 

- Use necessary point size appropriate to the font.