On inspiration…

How do you create a distinctive look and feel for a website that helps set it apart from the rest of the marketplace? Type, font, colour, image choice? Where does the inspiration come from for creating the best solution at the right time for the right client?

I recently found myself asking just that after finishing a project. Before I started designing I knew that one of my key tasks was to find a typographic style that would not only unify the site’s content but also make the site feel different from its well established competition.

Here’s an example of the typographic style we put together for the site: (I’ve used a background image and font colour a mile away from the content of the original site so as not to cloud the issue)

The idea for using type in this way — at an angle on a white background — seemingly came fully formed. However, when I step back, I’ve found it very intriguing to ask myself where the inspiration for this part of the design came from.

Firstly, as I was briefed on the project the film Be Kind Rewind was being advertised in magazines and on the Underground:

Whilst I’ve heard the film isn’t that good, I really liked the use of bold type set on a bright colour background. Its a great visual device that helped the poster stand out amongst all the other ads on the tube.

Of course, punching out type in this way isn’t new. Barbara Kruger is famous for her use of black and white photographs overlaid with white on red type:

One of the things that makes Kruger’s work so distinctive is the choice of fonts: Futura Bold Italic. It’s a style that’s still filtering down into the high street (as per this campaign for Selfridges) and into nearly every designer’s visual vocab (as memorably discussed on Design Observer a few years ago).

A good example of how such a distinctive look has been subtly twisted and moved on is the identity of the Barbican gallery:

This image is taken from a page of their branding guidelines, outlining how they use Futura Italic at an angle. The combination of a distinctive font set at 9° helps create a common identity across all of their exhibitions and posters, regardless of the subject matter.

For our client I felt that Futura was a little bit too masculine for their target audience and brand – something softer felt more appropriate.

It was at about this time that I remembered reading an article from the New York Times comparing the different visual styles of 2 nominees for the US presidential election. The article compared Barack Obama to a Mac and Hillary Clinton to a PC. The article was linked to from many of the blogs I read as it was fascinating for the candidates to be weighed up through design. One of the many follow up articles talked about the font choice for barackobama.com:

The font is called Gotham and was designed last year by Hoefler & Frere-Jones, one of the best modern type foundries around. Here’s an example of the font, with its great letter shapes and soft curves:

So there you have it. The look and feel I was looking for – through Hilliary Clinton to Jack Black and from Barbara Kruger to Barack Obama… Writing this blog post reminds me to never stop looking at what’s around – as you never know when a visual cue might come together to form an idea.