TYPEFACE ANALYSIS REVISIONS - food products 2

For revisions, lets begin with the Great Value bowtie pasta box that I found in the pantry but could also be found at Walmart; the first bad food product example.

It is quite legible, which for a recipe, might be all that is needed. However, there is no typeface that is visually emphasized well. The letters found here are all either title case or sentence case. The key ingredients of this recipe are all in title case and directions are in usual sentence structure (begin with a capital letter word with everything else lower case). Some phrases attempt to differentiate themselves by appearing slightly bigger such as “What You Need:” and “25 MINUTES”, but I think the effect and purpose of this attempt of emphasis is lost.

I think the reason why the emphasis is lost and also why this typography is bad is due to the color choice in these fonts. Although legible, the background these fonts are backed up against are of indigo and some white. By making the fill of these fonts white and the strokes a similar blue or indigo, it sort of blends the typefaces with the background and reduces readability. While the fill of the fonts almost contrast themselves with the background, since both typeface and background are of similar color scheme, the overall effect this has would be to make viewers sort of glaze over what is written. The key ingredients only being in title case barely gets the importance of these ingredients across well, the few pictures of the ingredients beside them does a better job.

Next is the box of taco shells that I found to be an example of good typography. Compared to the pasta box, each typeface here is in a direct contrast with the background behind them. Bright yellow and orange background with the dark brown lettering allows the type faces to immediately call out for the attention of the viewer. This color scheme also allows for the Old El Paso logo to stand out in a completely different color, red.

The typefaces are legible but the contrast also makes these typefaces visually interesting to look at. What was done well was that key pointers were heavily bolded. These bolded words subtly communicate to the viewer enough necessary information for them to accomplish these directions without fully reading the directions. For example, if the viewer reads only the bolded words of oven, 325 degrees F, and 6 to 7 minutes, they have all the necessary information needed to complete the task. The use of bold fonts goes a long way in communication key information. Calorie count and nutrition are also bolded as that would also be a key concern for some people. There’s also another typeface being used on this box. The key information and directions were kept in an Sans Serif typeface, but this other typeface is some type of cursive font. Adding multiple fonts would usually mean visual clutter and therefore losing the message, but since most of the key information is already in one font, introducing a vastly different visual font adds another layer of contrast both visually and communication wise.

The key information was easy to read to get straight to the point, but the cursive takes a little of time to read and comprehend and once someone reads one sentence or phrase, they’d realize that this is extra information that isn’t necessary to the task but serves as a means for more options. The cursive taking slightly longer to read could also serve as another way to focus on what’s more easily read at first, the key information. Overall, this seems to be a very good example of typography.