Project 4
Project Introduction
Oct. 10, 2020
Design a 60-second video that highlights the unique characteristics and personality of your typeface in the context of its use and in relation to its larger type family.
Main 3 Adjectives:
Beautiful
Sophisticated
Antique
For this video, I considered my final spread from the last project and the main adjectives I had to describe the Goudy Typeface. This typeface has a classical feel and is inspired by the Renaissance and Medieval Times, so I wanted to pay homage to that era in my video.
Choosing Music
I decided to start off by listening to some classical music and browse around related type of music. I came across the song Camille Saint-Saëns — Danse Macabre, which was a dynamic song with many crescendos and various melodies.
It was very fun to listen to with its various instruments, and I could visual various way the typeface could appear; however, I was conflicted with the context of this song. Although it is a classical song, I wanted to make it more specific in context with the Goudy typeface.
I searched for music created in the Renaissance and learned that the Lute was one of the main instruments used in that time. So I came across this song which uses both the lute and is a classical song cover.
I liked this approach to my song choice since it seemed more relevant to my typeface; however, I found this song to be too long and hard to clip a specific section of the song. I searched for another song that has similar qualities to my second song choice.
Script
I decided to edit my 50 word statement and use a new script for the video:
Visual Direction
I explored the renaissance and medieval times to pick which visual elements I should add for Goudy. Federic Goudy stated that he was inspired by medieval manuscripts when he was creating the typeface so I wanted to bring some of that in my video.
1st Draft Crit Feedback
Here are some of the comments made on the 1st iteration:
- video went by quickly, felt very short
- spend a lot of time on the spread with the old guy writing script, and too much time on the medieval script spread
- its quirky, makes me curious
- the pacing is slowed down, which matches with the music
- enjoyed the unique aesthetic
- the page with the stroke weight, needs more hierarchy and visual distincition
Key Critiques
- Federic Goudy is American but the video is very renaissance-y
- theres a disconnect, its shocking to see American in the font and renaissance in the pics
- perhaps misguiding with modern American ads with renaissance sound and imagery
- more captivated by imagery, so it’s hard to follow narrative: could follow diamond, but the imagery is too strong, wish narrative was stronger.
- have quieter credits (smaller fonts)
- “Federic Goudy” is too spaced out
- Diamond is hard to tell with the colon punctuation being huge
The critique sessions was incredibly helpful because it allowed me to see that I was straying way too far from the American Typeface. My narrative was being overlooked by the puppets in the background and the imagery was too strong. I decided to change my approach for the final video by taking out the medieval imagery and replacing it with content around the 1910s.
I added in some examples of Goudy being used on advertisements and reviews on the newspapers in the 1900s. It helped draw a closer line between Goudy as a typeface with Federic Goudy as a person living in the early 20th century.
Final Crit Feedback
- beginning is very interesting, kinda corny but strangely works with the music
- it goes from the renaissance to the diamond, theres no clear flow between different images making the narration still confusing; monty pithon-esq
- video could be reduced to 30 sec
- this is a typeface video but theres a lot of emphasis on pictures
- some words a dragged along near the end
- would be better to see Goudy as a normal font more than in italics
- helpful to have more connection with renaissance and advertisment
Reflection
Overall, the response to the final video still had a lot of confusion in its narrative, I saw a lot of areas where I need to improve. There was confusion on the transition from the Renaissance painting to the advertisements and too much emphasis on the picture. I agree with both of these critiques and understand that I should have focused more on the typeface itself rather than the context it lives in. Just like Kyu mentioned, my video can be reduced to 30 sec, but rather I dragged it out on the last 30 sec. I believe the overall video could be better by focusing less on the images and more on the typeface itself.
