food products

Next is this bottle of wine or whatever alcoholic beverage. I initially thought this was a good example of typography as there’s a good amount of legible, readable typography, but it fell short with the layout they chose in the lower half of the bottle.

We’ve got a serif typeface present at the top with Taylor and New York, which gives a more eccentric feel to the product. Followed up by a sans serif typeface with Port, most likely indicating the flavor or version of this beverage. So far, the layout and appearance is fine, the previous words are spaced and positioned enough to where they are centrally aligned and take up an equal amount of space. However, the layout starts losing readability with the paragraph below “Port.”

To accommodate for the graphic and the centrally aligned visuals, they decided to split the text. The first line is kept whole, but the remaining 3 lines of text are split in half. While we can bridge the gap between and read all of the text as usual from left to right, it’s just as easy to be able to read the split off text as their own section. I feel that if it’s even a possibility to read it like so and break how you read it, it’s not a good typographic choice.

The bottle does end up being visually interesting with these choices and they even could’ve tried to be ambitiously creative with the word choice to where having the split text could make sense both on its own and combined, but ultimately ends up being a fractured reading experience.

The next example of good example of typography is this container of coffee powder. Emphasis seems to be a common thing I talk about when it comes to typography, but this does end up being another example of characters being well-emphasized. The main brand of Nescafe along with Clasico is plain white but it’s contrasted nicely with the dark browns behind it.

Stylistically, this choice of contrast is a good design choice for a coffee themed product, white letterforms on a brown background visually tell a message of sugar/creme and coffee. Another case of contrast above with the brown letterforms on a yellow background. The letters seem well tracked, each block of text is spaced equidistantly for an easier reading experience.

The word “Clasico” also seems to be in both a different typeface and an almost italicized font. This word being italicized adds another layer of emphasis denoting what version of Nescafe this product is. It’s an almost subtle change due to it being the same white as “Nescafe”, but it’s a change enough that allows viewers to distinguish that this is a version of this product.

One last thing to take note of is the uppercase “N” in Nescafe. They opted to make it go larger than the supposed Cap Height of the text and they also made the ending terminal extend out horizontally almost throughout the whole word. This adds some visual interest, but also adds some sort of structure to the word. The way the space under this extension is about the same amount of spacing as the rest of the tracking in the word plays into the equal spacing of Nescafe but also the other text on this container, giving the viewer a very stable and balanced visual experience.

This magazine was found around the house amongst another array of magazines. Throughout all the magazines it was actually a bit difficult to definitively find something that struck me as bad, however after looking at this for a moment, I realized that it committed a classic readability mistake of splitting and combining two different phrases together. Though I think some credit can be attributed to keeping the two different phrases of “How Should I Vote?” and “The Catholic Dilemma” distinct with different typefaces, sizes, and colors. Anecdotally, I asked my mom how she read this and she read each phrase separately as “How Should I Vote - The Catholic Dilemma,” which would probably be the intended way to read it. However, like any similar example, it’s also just as easy to read it as it is from top to bottom as “How The Should Catholic I Vote? Dilemma.” They attempt to keep the text center aligned in respect to the buildings beside it, which is a good consideration. However, the issue lies in their decision to split the phrases in the first place. If there’s enough space to have them separated, then there should also be enough space to keep them together. They’d be able to save the readability that way. The only reason I can see to have them separated is to add visual interest as alternating the text that way can create a visual rhythm, but I think it’s too risky to be attempting that over readability.

This was found around the house but at the moment this picture was taken, there isn’t a green tea sugar scrub in this container, but red paint. That aside, this would be a good example of typography. Usually this would be something I’d consider a bad example of typography due to the many typefaces and fonts being used, but I think this is one of the few cases that manages to have many typefaces without being overbearing and disruptive.

The main attraction of this product is the large “GREEN TEA” in a vastly different typeface than the rest of the product with an almost brush-like appearance. With that being the major distinct typeface, how the rest of the text remains undisruptive while appearing different is most likely through the combination of different fonts and uppercase and lowercase characters. A closer inspection will see that the words “Tree Hut” and “Shea Sugar Scrub” have a very similar appearance in typeface, notably with the capital E and U they share, with Shea Sugar Scrub most likely being a bold font. These two seem to be a pair of the same type family. “Tree Hut” also seems to recede how dominant it is by being a brown color that complements the peach color behind it.

The last three lines of text, the line under Shea Sugar Scrub is a sans serif font, but it isn’t disruptive due to how extremely small the type size is in comparison to everything else. The last two lines seem very similar in appearance and could be in the same type family but it’s difficult to tell. One thing for sure is that one is regular and one is italic. All three lines of text appear different but because they aren’t very large and emphasized, they also aren’t disruptive. The takeaway being that it might be possible to include many different typefaces if each typeface isn’t fully emphasized and doesn’t take away from the main product or advertisement, which in this case the different typefaces doesn’t take away the attention from “Green Tea Shea Sugar Scrub.”