Building my Typeface/

For my Project I want to create a typeface as part of my redesign for the Helsinki Tram Network. I had the initial idea for the form and the shape of my typeface from Helsinki’s slogan (Pearl of the Baltic Sea), this slogan gave me the idea to produce a rounded style.

Below are the typographic experiments and problem solving sketches that I produced to develop my typeface.

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Below are some screenshots of how I made the grid setup for my typeface, this formula I have developed for my typeface was very useful to create this grid because I could later use the shape builder tool on Illustrator to create my shapes in the grid.

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These are a few screenshots that show how I worked around some of my problems in my typeface. I initially did some of the working out in my sketchbook and the rest was developed through trail and error on Adobe. I would make project boards that had varied on different branches of what a certain letter or number could look like, I would have peers and tutors weigh in on what varient was the most organic.

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My Finished Typography

Below is my finshed designs of my font, the sliders can be shifted to reveal the difference between the frameworks of the font and the finished letters.

Hopefully this typeface will be able to adapt successfully to different mediums later on in this project. I intend to use this typeface is posters, maps and signage for my redesign. The look for these designs will not be as monochrome as the pictures I have displayed on this post, I will use a wide range of colours for the rebranding.

Overall I am very proud of these designs, but I feel that my lowercase typeface is not as good as my uppercase type. I initially designed my typeface to be uppercase because I thought it would be more legible, but in further research I disprooved this and decided to make a lowercase for variety. Due to my grid structure being set up for a uppercase font I found it difficult to adapt it to the grid.

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