toiletries & cleaning 2

Next is the toiletries & cleaning section, starting with this bottle of shampoo/conditioner. I noticed this while showering and heavily debated if this had good or bad typography. Everything seemed fine, but there was something about this that bugged me. All of the letterforms are contrasted well, the strokes of each letter are pretty consistent, the tracking/kerning of all the text is also spaced well; in terms of legibility everything is very consistent and readable.

Eventually the conclusion I found myself upon was that for one, there’s a lot of typefaces present, with some even having a bolded font. I can maybe count around 8 different typefaces with a little more if I count each different appearance of a character (like uppercase to title case) as a separate typeface. With this many typefaces, the effect ends up being that too much is emphasized. “head & shoulders” seems to be an italicized and bolded font, indicating where its use is. The two lines below that, “Dandruff Shampoo + Conditioner” is bolded indicating what it is, but at least to me, “Dandruff ” being bolded makes it seem like this shampoo and conditioner is made of dandruff. The 2 and 1 also being larger point size and having a bolded aesthetic to them tells us information we already know (it being shampoo and conditioner, it could even be talking about head and shoulders).

Then last of all is the 4 lines of text after, it’s for MEN from the ADVANCED SERIES with the flavor of SWAGGER from Old Spice. I know commercially Old Spice tends to be rather excessive when it comes to marketing and I’ll admit, I think they got the point across, but it does bug me how each identifier that indicates a different property to this product is in a different typeface.

Following is this acne product that you can find at Ulta. There’s a pretty simple color palette that was chosen, but the text doesn’t end up being hard to read because of it. The teal-ish color is reminiscent of cool emotions, like water and refreshments which help inform the “Cleanser.” All of the text here is sans serif which allows this product to look more modern, but also seems to abide by only one typeface throughout, just in different fonts, sizes, uppercases and lower cases, which makes this a very consistent viewing experience.

The text here is well tracked, there’s also a pretty consistent leading being used that’s rather noticeable from “Acne Control Cleanser” and “Reduces” to “niacinamide,” it’s all well-spaced. Even the smaller text under “Cera” and “Cleanser” abides by some sort of leading, not interfering with that invisible baseline. If anything, I would say that the tracking on CeraVe might be a little bit too tight, or the kerning between the C and e, r and a or V and e, but it’s loose enough to where the letters aren’t conflicting and making it unreadable. If anything, the tightness might help inform the design more, making it feel more structural.

The text is contrasted well of course. In particular, the text that is bolded, from “Acne” to “skin barrier”, is a good choice in font as emphasis is placed on the information that is key for the viewer. If the viewer requires acne care, “Acne Control Cleanser” is there as a starter and following that is specifically what the cleanser does in bold, from “Reduces blackheads” to “skin barrier.” The bold font allows the viewer to quickly get the information they need and to make a decision.