Monday, 5 March 2012

Every designer, regardless of race, creed or nationality, understands the language of type. A graphic designer who is not fluent is not a graphic designer



For this unit4 study I have looked at typography and how important a role it plays in packaging. I have researched definitions and a brief history of typography, design agencies involved in major packaging rebranding and the designers behind the most popular font in the package industry, Helvetica and its influence. Sources for this project include Dictionaries, Typography books and the Internet
Typography has many definitions; there is no one perfect definition, but when you alter wording you begin to get a better understanding of the subject. Collins dictionary states that typography is “the art, craft, or process of composing type and printing from it or the selection and planning of type for printed publications”. I would agree, however in a modern world where most typography is created digitally and typography software, could this suggest designs created on computers are not typography? I would reword it to “the art/process of composing and arranging type” Although this may not be the perfect definition; it includes all forms and skills from hand drawn to digital.
Many believe ‘typography’ initially started with Johannes Gutenberg who invented the mechanical printing press and the method of movable type, made from lead based alloy, in the mid 15th Century. The technique is so successful at producing mass type; it's still used today, 500 years later.
There are considered two types of typographers - the professional/ functional designer who creates for public consumption and the ‘”expressionist” designer who creates illustrative pieces that vary in shape and form, legibility and illegibility. The majority of packaging uses professional and functional designs to put across the products brand more easily.
Typography plays an extremely important role in packaging because the type helps the product appeal to a specific market, a simple professional serif font like Times New Roman is aiming at a more mature market where as a font like Helvetica is aiming at wider market and doesn’t specifically target any niche. Type is also a brands identity; major worldwide companies can be recognized solely from the font and colour without even reading the brand name because of globalization. Rebranding and changing the font could result in a negative impact for the company, they might lose regular customers thus leading to a drop in sales as well as a drop in profit or even a loss.
Pepsi co made a radical decision to completely rebrand Pepsi spending $1.3 billion employing the design agency Arnell Group to ‘Refresh’ the packaging. The font was changed from a bold italic in your face font that had been used for nearly 20 years to a simple light weight subtle font. Initially the rebrand didn’t go down well amongst the public and my peers that I have spoken to about packaging rebrand have dislike the packaging to its amateurish look as if a student had designed it. Personally I enjoyed the fresh new Pepsi look as it has moved away from the ‘Classic’ styling that Coca cola uses appealing at a younger market. I also like the light –weighted, lower case font with the block navy background has given the bottles and cans a simpler, modern look. However the longer you look at the packaging the more amateur it does look and it seems to have lost its successful identity.
(PEPSI rebrand, Arnell Group, 2008)

Pepsi had a brand new font designed for their rebrand but many brands use Helvetica. Helvetica (Originally called Neue Haas Grotesk) is a clean lined san serif font developed in 1957 by Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann, their aim was to create a neutral typeface that had great clarity, no intrinsic meaning in its form, and could be used on a wide variety of signage. They changed the name to Helvetica (Swiss in Latin) to make it internationally marketable. Over 50 years later Helvetica is arguably the world’s most popular font and appears some of the largest international brands packaging including Evian Water.

(Evian packaging, Helvetica)

 The importance of Helvetica in Evian’s branding is huge, the brand wouldn’t be as recognisable if the font was changed or if there was no typography at all, this could be down to the length of time Helvetica had been used in the branding of the company. Even when Evian contracts famous designers to create unique collective special edition bottles, they still insist that the word ‘Evian’ is written in Helvetica, even without the cloud back drop. The font has become their identity as much as their logo. I also believe the importance of using Helvetica in branding is down to its subliminal recognisability of Helvetica because of its use everywhere, for example; Toyota, BMW, Microsoft, Panasonic, Oral B, Orange, GAP, Royal Bank of Scotland and the list goes on. Because Helvetica is used so widely throughout brands and packaging you would think there would be a ‘uniform response’ from designers but some saw it as a “smog of corporate power and state control, entirely devoid of meaning because the world is so saturated with it” 
                                                       ( Helvetica, Max Miedinger with Eduard Hoffmann, 1957)
   
I have mixed feelings for Helvetica, I wouldn’t really use it in any of my typographical work because of the fact it is over used and everywhere you turn, I want my type to have individuality and I don’t think that’s possible with Helvetica, however it depends on the circumstance. For unit 6 my brief was to create packaging for a bottled water company, meaning the packaging it needs to be attractive to consumers, Helvetica is proven to commercially successful therefore it makes sense to use it in the practical world but never for typographic prints.
My aim was to find out what role typography plays in packaging, mainly drinks bottles. My unit 5 research basically consisted of a whole variety of drinks bottles and one key factor I noticed throughout was that every single packaging revolved around the type. Without the typography the drinks wouldn’t be as successful because of the huge role they play; typography promotes the company, it informs us what the product actually is and its contents, but mainly the typography gives the drinks bottle its own unique identity and sets it apart from its competitors with the use of different fonts, sizes and formatting. When a company rebrands and simplifies its packaging they generally remove the background image or information on the company, they never remove their main typography and rarely do they change font, thus proving just how important typography actually is.
An example of this would be Mehmet Gozetliks ‘Minimalist effect in the maximalist market’. I researched Mehmet in my unit 5 and what he did was simplify leading brands on the market down to just typography and it proves that the typography is the most important and recognisable part of the package design.

                                         
                                      
                                                      
                                                  (Mehmet Gozetliks ‘Minimalist effect in the maximalist market’ 2011)
After summarising my research for projects 4 and 5, I have come to the conclusion that typography plays the second most important role in packaging. I say second because obviously the package itself is more important in most circumstances, therefore typography is the most important thing on packaging because that is the brands identity.


Bibliography


Images-
Web research-
Quotation-
  • Typography sketchbooks, Steven Heller and Lita Talarico
Books-