2. What’s the importance of a font?
Font can make or break a media product. It can determine the overall
effect and impression the audience gets of the product and often
persuade them whether to purchase the product (such as in a
magazine advert or a brand logo). To ensure the preferred reading
(Stuart Hall) is achieved by the audience, it is important to ensure
that the font being used suits the themes, genre and desired effect of
the texts. This is why I have decided to carry out a font trial for my
ancillary products, so I can ensure the font that I choose to use will
create my desired effect. Fonts often tell an audience a little bit about
the product they feature on and this can easily be identified by the
layout of the letters, letter spacing and shape.
There are many different types of font available to use, but there are
certain parts of a font that indicate in what situations, where and
products it can be used in. For example, a font written in the Serif
form is often used in formal products such as letters and should be
used in professional situations. In contrast to this, a font in the form
of Sans Serif may be used in informal, friendly and casual situations.
This font would be associated with products
such as valentines day cards and love letters.
This is because of its flowy lettering and
hearts instead of o’s.
This is the type of font that could be used on
titles for video and computer games. The straight
edges and lack of complete lettering give the
lettering a modern and sci-fi vibe.
This is the type of font that audiences would
associate with heavy metal bands or horror
films. This is due to the splatters around the
letters, which may appear to be blood and the
sharp, spiked lettering.
3. Fonts within the digipacks and adverts of my artist and genre
I have mainly focused on the fonts used in the
digipacks of my artist, and others, because a
convention of my genre is that the fonts used in
digipacks are the same in the advert.
A change In letter spacing, boldness, letter width and
overall appearance is evident throughout Gambino’s
digipacks as well as various digipacks from other
artists in my genre. This suggests to me the font type
is dependent on the style of the album and is not
reliant on the artist or genre alone. For example,
there is a drastic difference between the font Drake
uses in his ‘Take Care’ digipack, Kanye West’s ‘Yeezus’
digipack and Childish Gambino’s ‘Camp’ digipack.
Because of this it is difficult to say that the genre
conforms to any strict convention. However, a
convention that is made obvious is the fact that the
font used on a product is dependent on the music it
promotes. Furthermore, Gambino’s album ‘Because
the Internet’ features no font at all. This may be
because the album talks about controversial issues
and stereotypes, thus the lack of font embeds this.
Furthermore, A key convention of Gambino’s digipack
fonts I have come to notice is that the font is more
often than not white on a contrasting darker
background. This is something I want to include on my
digipack because it offers a gentler tone of font, which
will not only be perfect for matching the bright mood
of my chosen song but also sticking to convention.
The album ‘Kauai’ is much more
gentle in its tone and features songs
about relationships and love which is
demonstrated through the soft and
spacious font.
Gambino’s album ‘Camp’ features
some songs that could be
considered aggressive, such as
‘Backpackers’, hence the bold and
thick font style which is used
throughout the digipack. It works
to create a rough and audacious
overall effect from the digipack.
Another thing to note is that The
font used by Childish in his ‘Camp’
digipack matches that used on his
previous album ‘I am Just a
Rapper’. Both of these albums
were made at a point in
Gambino’s career when he was
not as popular as he currently is.
This shows that artists who are
less well known will often use the
same font in their products to put
across a brand, sense of familiarity
and recognisability for audiences.
The font on Drakes ‘Take Care’
album is written in cursive
and is a very gentle, which in
a way reflects the themes in
the album, such as love and
relationships. The colour of
the font and close spacing
matches the mise on scene of
the digipack which is full of
gold props and decoration,
thus showing a common
theme and connection
between the font and mise en
scene digipack. This is a
convention I will incorporate
into my final products.
4. How to find a font:
When finding my options for fonts I
decided to look online at some popular,
free font websites to ensure that
copywriting somebody’s font was an
issue. Furthermore these sites offer an
extremely wide range of different fonts
which means I will have a lot of options
to find the perfect one I want to use. The
websites I chose to look at were
‘fontsquirrel’, ‘dafont’ and ‘1001fonts’. I
think it was important that I browsed
these websites because a normal word
or standard font would not suffice for the
effect I want to create for my audience.
These websites offer fonts that are much
more professional and well suited to the
final products I wish to create.
This font has the appearance of having been written several
times to create a bold and clear font that will catch the eyes of
my audience. I think this font would match the hip-hop genre
well because it will add a slightly aggressive mood to the
products, and aggressiveness is something seen regularly in the
music of the genre and in Gambino’s own music. However, for
the music video and products I am going to create I am worried
that the font may come across as too aggressive and angry, and
potentially more suited to a genre such as horror. This is because
the overdrawn lettering could be considered to have too much of
a creepy and tormented vibe than I would like to present to my
audience.
5. I like this font because it is simple and stylish in a way
that doesn’t come across over dramatic, which is
something I think my audience will appreciate. I think
overall it fits the vibrant feel of the song and will
represent the themes of love in it very well. I think this
comes across through the flick at the end of the
lettering. Despite this being slightly within the style of
serif lettering, it does not come across as formal due to
the curvature of the letters. Despite this, I think I would
like a thicker and bolder font would fit the brand that
Childish Gambino has already put out to an audience.
So by using this font it would mean that my products
would be less conventional but fit my music video well.
I like this font because it’s a lot bolder and fits the
conventions of my genre and artist well. The sans serif
appearance of the font will stand out significantly
more on the page and cover. However, I am
concerned that it may be too basic and uninteresting
for my target audience. This is something I want to get
some audience feed back on in order to determine
whether or not the font would be appropriate. But, I
do liked how the font feels relaxed and easy, which is
something my audience will definitely look for in a
font.
6. This font is my favourite so far because it is similar
to Gambino’s already used fonts and therefore will
fit his established brand well. But, the slightly
jagged letters offers a slightly different tone to the
products than Gambino’s previously used fonts.
This is still conventional, as fonts used by artists in
the hip-hop genre often change with each album
and single release. Also, I really like this font
option because it is bold but not so eye-catching
that it becomes obnoxious and obtrusive. I think,
overall, it will perfectly match my intensions for all
my final products.
This font choice is a lot different to the previous options because
it is a more modern approach to the typography. I believe this
font something my audience will like because it is modern and
they are a young audience, therefore they may find it easier to
associate themselves with this font. I think it will reflect the
overall style of Gambino’s music as he takes a contemporary
approach to hip hop. Furthermore, it will also appeal to my
audience because it has a ‘techno’ vibe to it which, because my
target audience has such a huge internet culture which Childish
features on regularly, is something they will appreciate. Despite
the fact that this font suggests that the music will be upbeat, I
do, however, believe that my previous options of font would fit
the actual songs vibe much better than this one.
