The Wicked poster presents a good choice of typeface for its purpose. It's a serif font (with the exception of the "c") and is used in small caps, creating a bold, austere tone--which is appropriate for the musical--and it pops off the dark contrasting background. The "i" is dotted by a flying witch, bringing that added unique quality to the wordmark. Since the rest of the type in the poster is also in small caps, the result is clean, clear, and cohesive, emphasizing both the image of the two Oz witches, and intentionally sets the figurative stage for the musical.
An example of poor type is this Smokey Joe's Cafe poster. Though the Smokey Joe's Cafe musical doesn't have a prescribed theatrical poster, they all revolve around graphics of neon lights and an old-fashioned mic. This particular poster tries to create script out of neon-stylized font, which just comes across as confusing and convoluted, making it hard to read. The font tries too do too much, and takes away from the main focus of the poster: the title.
The Wicked poster presents a good choice of typeface for its purpose. It's a serif font (with the exception of the "c") and is used in small caps, creating a bold, austere tone--which is appropriate for the musical--and it pops off the dark contrasting background. The "i" is dotted by a flying witch, bringing that added unique quality to the wordmark. Since the rest of the type in the poster is also in small caps, the result is clean, clear, and cohesive, emphasizing both the image of the two Oz witches, and intentionally sets the figurative stage for the musical.
An example of poor type is this Smokey Joe's Cafe poster. Though the Smokey Joe's Cafe musical doesn't have a prescribed theatrical poster, they all revolve around graphics of neon lights and an old-fashioned mic. This particular poster tries to create script out of neon-stylized font, which just comes across as confusing and convoluted, making it hard to read. The font tries too do too much, and takes away from the main focus of the poster: the title.
I like the Wicked poster. That is a very good insight of the exception of C being a sans serif. I wonder why they leave "c" sans serif. It is creative that they use a little flying witch instead of a dot for the "i".
ReplyDeleteStevie -
ReplyDeleteGreat examples! The use of the "witch" to dot the eye is something we call substitution in graphic design, and it can be used for a lot of fun projects (think about your mag feature spread!). The color on Wicked is so well done too.
I agree that Smokey Joe's has readability issues, but I think this might work for the tone this place might want to give off.. The bigger issue, as you pointed out, is that it's unclear what this is for - a restaurant/bar or a musical?
Keep up the good work,
paul