Typographic beauty

Posted by Daniel Stout on Mon 19 Mar 2007 at 7:10 AM

Taylor Lane of the UK put together a promotional calendar for their design work. It won a techniques award in the publications category from Epica (“Europe’s Premier Creative Awards”). Interesting work and entirely typographic. And also not safe for work. Beautifully done, these pieces are the typographic equivalent of the pin-up calendar. Each month’s beauty is set from a different typeface. Presented here is Miss Bodoni. Follow the link for hi-res versions of the rest. Here’s what it says on the calendar:

Miss Bodoni
Beautiful Bodoni, brimming with style and sophistication. This Italian stunner has voluptuous curves and always looks better well leaded. She moved in aristocratic circles in her formative years (the Duke of Palma was especially impressed with her cupped top serifs) and then enjoyed a glittering career, particularly in the world of fashion. She’s often seen in Paris and Milan and her face regularly appears in leading style magazines.

Apparently, Taylor Lane’s business went up 25% from new and existing clients after the calendar came out. It’s very well executed and is a nice piece overall.

I thought for a bit about whether this work reflects typography’s natural origins. That is, whether the forms of the characters were on a human scale in their shapes. There may be some truth in that, but I think overall it works because the English alphabet is composed of simple, curvy lines, which apparently work moderately well for illustration purposes. Of course some of the letters were somewhat modified—elongated or otherwise enhanced—for the purposes of that project. But overall it simply confirms that type is expressly beautiful and beautifully expressive even if language isn’t your purpose in using the type.

The pin-up calendar format unfortunately cheapens the illustrations though and makes them more about the male gaze then as freestanding design pieces in and of themselves. I suppose the concept was easy, and it “works” for cohesion. I can’t imagine someone hanging such a calendar in a workplace, at least not in the U.S., but perhaps would be more appropriate in someone’s personal studio. It would be fun to see the accompanying Adobe Illustrator files (or whatever tool they used) to see the markup on the type. But that’s purely a geek’s desire. [via mathowie]

Tags: calendar · taylor lane · typography

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