Week One: Nelson

As we've talked about in class a bit, restaurants definitely make use of typefaces in order to draw customers in--though in some cases, it keeps people away. Last night, I went to Uno's for dessert, and keeping this blog in mind, I looked at their typefaces more closely. I had noticed it before, but never took the time to really think about what it meant, other than looking nice and professional. Looking closely at the text, I saw the two fonts working together to achieve an image for the restaurant; Uno's uses both sans serif and serif fonts in its name, the serif being most predominant as the "Uno" portion of the size is in bold, large, uppercase letters outlined in both yellow, white and black (at least for the one I went to; I've seen many variations of the sign). The Uno portion of the sign stands out the most, all the letters in contact, with the "o" tucked into the "n". The font type used has both thicker and thinner lines, which also gives the image a more modern twist. Underneath "Uno", Chicago Grill is placed in a sans serif font, the designer putting the tracking technique to use so all the letters are spread apart evenly and fit under Uno to leave equal space on either side of the words. This portion of the sign is also done in thickly bolded font, this time in white with a black background. Rule lines are also used to still give "Chicago Grill" some notice and attention from the eye, despite "Uno" being the visual hierarch in this case. Since "Chicago Grill" is in white font, it also enables it to stand out on its own after the eye follows the white space in the Uno above to the also stark white against the black of this text. By mixing the sans serif and serif fonts, Uno's manages to give off a unique vibe: the serif tells us that they're a traditional, family friendly restaurant where any customer can expect good service and good food; the serif lets us know that Uno's goes beyond tradition, and incorporates some modern aspects and unique qualities that not just any restaurant could offer to us. In this way, Uno's can attract both a young and old crowd, as young people often look for the newest, hippest most modern hang out, and the older folks will tend to go for the safe traditions. In all, I think the combination of colors and fonts works for Uno's, enabling the restaurant to get a diverse crowd of people heading in, old and young; and since from what I can tell the parking lot's almost always full, I think most people would also agree the typeface works.

Another example of typeface I never really took note of until thinking about this blog, is on another blog site I post to: tumblr. As the main font is all lower case letters, with only ascenders, the name in itself looks very clean and uniform. The b and the l are both made to ascend slightly more than the t, and a period is placed at the end of the name, as if to say the name tumblr can speak for itself much in the same way as a sentence describing the site could. Tracking is again used here, each letter spaced evenly, giving it a clean and professional look. Using a bolded serif font in white with a grey hue gradually being incorporated in more and more of each letter (i.e. the t has hardly any grey, where as looking at the last letter, r, it is almost completely grey), the coloration works as a linkage element to take our eyes across the name. The lower cased font and serif use gives the site an over-all friendly and modern look; it gives the sense that it is easy to use, but also a new, hip way to let out one's creativity. I think the font and color use tumblr utilizes works really well, enabling beginners to feel comfortable with the site and others to feel safe in returning periodically.

(As a side note, I wanted the image of the tumblr. font at the bottom, but couldn't figure out how to, so sorry it looks odd).