FONTS ARE FUN

Font is what you use, and typeface is what you see

Here is Lisa Kirkham sharing the latest Plaister Press book, We’re Going to Build a Dam with her daughter, budding writer, Hannah. Lisa is the typographic designer for Plaister Press books.

    We had a lot of fun with the typographic design of this book, bringing about an interplay of text, image and typeface, all feeding into the narrative. Here, the lettering is used graphically and it follows the movement of the stream.

 

My illustrations are done in watercolour with a strong ink line that Lisa matched with the font, Compendio. This has a rough, broken line; scruffy like the little boys on the beach. A gradation of tone is used to enhance the text; here the paler tone of the word ‘sand’ suggests a substance of a different texture to boulders and rocks:

 

And here, Lisa managed to get the feel of 'grit' with tiny dots:

Here it's all about sound; making the lettering imply sound in an illustrative way.

 

When, at the end of the story, the dam is breaking up, the lettering becomes increasingly tied in with the action in the way it is angled and positioned.

 

 

One of the things I've enjoyed the most since starting my own publishing company has been working with a typographic designer at the planning stage of a book.

 

 

LED CREATIVELY BY THE BOOK

In his article 'Led Creatively by the Book' in the Carousel Guide, Chris Stephenson writes: 'The body and soul of a picture book - illustrations, text, type design - should all evolve together.’

This is exactly what I wanted to do when I started working with typographic designer Lisa Kirkham,

and The Little White Sprite, with the tree dominating the page lent itself to the close interlacing of twigs, typeface and story.

    Starting with a rough like the one above, where the text was all in a block, we would work together positioning it into a more organic shape –

We were coming from different directions and that was exciting. Whereas I was used to thinking broadly about the picture book’s overall rhythms – the punctuation of page turns to create pause and suspense in a story, Lisa’s decisions were informed by the reading movement of the eye.  The placement of text and type design was like a form of visual intonation with spaces for breaths.  

    For example, words in a sentence singled out and moved to another line, like ‘a hole’, catch the eye and are given emphasis. We had to decide whether the emphasis was appropriate for that bit of the story.  

Whereas I might find a particular pattern of text, like that on the right hand page above, pleasing to the eye, I was having to learn to use my ears as well as my eyes when it came to very precise placing of text. There was something too staccato about the line separation of the words ‘tugging’ and ‘at me’ and, in the end, we put them on the same line to lessen the effect.  

This is all very subtle and probably passes unnoticed by the reader, but if it contributes unconsciously to a harmony in the book between eye and ear, then it’s worth doing.

Lisa and I are giving a workshop, Creative Use of Typography in the Children’s Book on 21 May 2011 as part of the SCBWI Illustrator Master Class series -

SCBWI Illustrator Series

And finally, Chris in his article mentions all the people who have helped Plaister Press come about. I’d like to add his name to that list with a big 'thank you' for his unwavering belief in the success of our venture.