Type Pairing Poster

The brief for this project was to take two fonts and display them in a complimentary fashion, showing each weight as well as the available symbols for each typeface. Other than the dimensions of the poster itself, the approach was up to us.

The main challenge was managing a large amount of text in a space that is well ordered with and maintains readability and proper visual hierarchy, even on particularly thin weights of text.

I chose two fonts — Kallisto and Tenby. While coming up with a strategy, I knew because of the sci-fi nature of my font pairings that I wanted something simple and geometric. The poster was going to be reverse text — that is, white text on a dark background.

A few challenges that cropped up when I worked was the difficulty of reading the thinnest weights of font while on reverse type. My initial idea of ‘typing on a path’ around geometric shapes, especially an octagon, was almost impossible to look as orderly as I wanted.

As I worked through some of these challenges, I reversed the displayed weight of the typefaces, with the lightest weights at the top and the heavier along the bottom. This helped tremendously, as it seemed as if the heavier text settled along the bottom.

My idea to type on a path on an octagon changed, and I instead went for the shape containing some of the symbols instead. This worked very well, being more orderly and clear than my initial solution.