Expressive Type

School Project: Typography 3, Second Year

Project Objective

Develop a custom, expressive typeface for print and digital applications.



Project Concept

This course began with selecting a quote, song lyric, or poem of choice, decoding and understanding its meaning, and expressing it through typography by developing a custom typeface. The song lyric I chose was the chorus to the 2005 song “Fix You” by Coldplay.

As I began decoding the song and diving deeper into its meaning, I felt that the song was written to comfort and console someone during a difficult time, and about the reassurance that they will try to fix or help repair them. This is when I came up with a threading motif to signify the attempt and desire to repair and put something back together. The colours also aim to push the concept forward, as it shows that repair is still in its process and slowly changing.

Using the same threading motif I developed from the poster, it then came time to expanding it further into a bilingual event booklet, with both languages being represented equally. The concept for my event also coincided with the treading and repairing motif from the song and my expressive type, this time through a fictional benefit concert that I called “The Right Set”. The festival's concept is about restoring and uniting the world through music, with notably charitable musical artists performing. This fictional event included my own original depictions of each artist and band in a style that reflected my threading motif.

Using Format