Typefaces in Use

Optima and Futura are "just my type". These names are those of the two different typefaces that I have chosen for my compositions of project one. For a little bit of background, the first project of typography is centered around text within a famous novel that was assigned to each group. Earthly Powers by Anthony Burgess is my novel to work with. I must incorporate the title, author, date of publication, chapter number and first paragraph into each composition. To add more information about the type I chose, both had to be invented within the time period of our novel, which in my case was 1980. First, I will show you ways Optima is used in the real world and next will be Futura.

Men's T-Shirt: the creator of this shirt was pretty clever using Optima type to form the face of Optimus Prime from Transformers. 

Design Book: this accordion style layout you are seeing is actually about the inventor of Optima, Hermann Zapf, and uses Optima to show his famous work. 

Handcrafted Ornament: this creation is using the the letter K from Optima typeface to personalize the tree ornament whether it's the beginning of a last name of whatever the case. 

Restaurant Window: the design team of this building used Optima to represent their "take out" option to the public for their food menu. 

Election Website: even though I dislike the subject of this web page, it strongly represents Optima, as well as my other font Futura and a couple others. McCain actually used Optima for all signage such as yard signs during the race period.

 Home Improvement Store: the well known IKEA uses Futura type in outside signage of their stores world wide like this out of the country location.

 Performance Watch: the packaging and the front portion of this watch uses Futura to represent the name of to its consumers.

 School Building: even the buildings from 1980's used this legendary typeface, Futura, to highlight names of public schools all around the world.

Wine Bottles: alcoholic beverage companies even take advantage of Futura within their branding of wine from Milan to emphasize the specific names.
 

 Computer Building: the very successful HP company uses Futura type on their signage outside of their locations where consumers can not only see it outside, but then cleverly buy the font inside.

The World of Book Covers

Similar to my post about Optima and Futura typefaces, this time I am exploring online book covers that stand out to me that use one or the other of my two fonts. Since both fonts were made before the year of 1980, there is literally a little world that has been created around both Optima and Futura. Below are 5 book covers of each typeface that I found to be successful in their design for a variety of reasons.

Optima: even thought the text is centered, the color scheme is flattering, there is strong legibility and the title is easily recognized.

 

Optima: even with the distracting circle illusion bright and big, the designer has still made the title clear and has an asymmetric movement as well.
 

Optima: even though the colors are a bit bland, I love the "t" style marks made to isolate some of the text from the title.

Optima: even with no true asymmetry, the way the designer created such movement with the title is successful along with placing the bird on the type so that it may draw your eye more towards the title. 

Optima: the title of this book creates that side to side motion that moves the eyes around the page and the fact that the authors name is at the right bottom corner helps the viewer see the table then the name. 

Futura: the background might be vivid and a little abstract but the designer still made sure to make everything legible and there is a feel of movement through the use of asymmetry as well. 

Futura: the use of negative space works well in this design and even if the text is tightly together, there is still a bit of asymmetry between the title and other elements. 

Futura: the title being in the middle of this abstract art pulls your eyes right into the text and the use of a little red is smart so that it's not a huge circle of just black and white.

Futura: again, like the one above, the designer uses the center of a focused on element of the cover to draw the reader's eye towards the title and the ripped up paper is a nice touch as well.

Futura: the colors work greatly together and the 3D effect draws your eye towards the bottom right corner even though that text is small and 2D making the layout successful.