I chose Bodoni as my typeface as it appears to me as a traditional font, the serifs add to this sense of authority and tradition. I therefore chose this ironically and plan to dismantle these initial ideas of the font's personality; yet maintain some sense of the original so as to contradict concepts of tradition with humour.
I chose Bauer Bodoni in particular as it's considered the crème de la crème of available Bodoni typefaces by designers as it's a more delicate and graceful redesign, revised by the German Bauer Type Foundry, released in 1926. It was designed by Heinrich Jost who was the artists director of the foundry from 1923 until 1948. It was designed typically to be used in the context of luxury brands, 'sumptuous magazines' or 'dignified website'. I plan to develop my type to be used in quite the opposite context, I've taken this font to deconstruct and diminish the lavish appeal purposely; it's more likely to be used as Headings for satirical articles and comedy columns or advertisements.
Reverse Italics
I now want to look at modifying the letterforms; adding the umlaut and slanting the serifs to a 45 degree angle, in keeping with the reverse italic slant. This being the idea of Thomas Briberg, who stated all ironic statements should be in reverse Italic; Driberg was a British journalist, politician and High Anglican churchman who served as an MP from 1942 to 1955 and again from 1959 to 1974.
Left leaning Italics are scarcely used with the Latin alphabet, however more frequently so with Arabic alphabets. This font is an Italic Didone typeface by the Figgins foundry in London, commissioned to be attention grabbing, which is amplified by the reverse italics.
Artist research
Researching an ironically created typeface, I found Comic Spurs:
Using the typeface Comic Sans as a basis, Sydney-based design director Michael Kleinman and New York art director Declan Byrnes-Enoch have published Comic Spurs under the name James H Goldberg. The concept behind this was to "fight back against the anti-establishment establishment".
The designers made this font to be used in an ironic context, aimed at the Mid- Western American Aesthetic, usually alongside words like 'Artisanal', they noted that since these words have such little substantiation these products are easily viewed as phoney; "How could something so weathered have been founded last Tuesday?"
"Comic Sans used to be funny to designers, but it's been corrupted by 'the Man'."
The designers on releasing this typeface initially wanted to gage the audiences reaction, wether people genuinely liked it or found it amusing. The fact Comic Sans has been the most overused joke in the design world adds fuel to the fire; "If a middle-class office worker with a neck tattoo looks like a badass, maybe Comic Sans with spurs can too," they hoped.
The addition of the spurs adds an edge to the originally soft typeface, typically used in children's literature, as Comic Sans originated from comic book font. I hope to use serif alterations to give my own typeface an edge. By slanting them at a 45° angle, not only will they appear more like spikes but will slant alongside the reverse italics applied to the letterforms, creating more of a unified feel however contradicting the idea serifs should be aligned on a straight line. Therefore the formality remains to some degree however the overall slanted look goes against conformity.
Umlauts
Using the Umlaut for the letter 'F' is unconventional as they're specifically used for vowels. This emphasises the subtle irony behind exaggerating the F in the first place. The umlaut is used to modify the form or sound:
It originally comes from the German equivalent to um- about (i.e. changed) & Lautsound
Using either the F and U or J and K as significant letters, I began to play around. 'JK' together can be representative of the slang for joke, adding to the overall personality of the typeface if these two were to be altered differently to the other letters, as of yet I'm unsure wether to have the F and the U this way as well, or just choose one pair so as to keep some kind of ironic sophistication, as I feel having all four may be too much.
It seems there is no obvious way in which to have slanted italics for any font so I had to skew the alphabet in Photoshop. Here is the alphabet with just the italics and umlauts, not yet the serif modifications.
The top terminals also link to the serifs in a curve however the top of the terminals are flat, due to the nature of the slant, I kept this flat as opposed to extending the serif diagonally through the top as this felt too informal. I furthermore flipped the tail of the 'Q', in keeping with the uniformity of the contradictory unconventional slant. All beaks are connected in a curve to the rest of the letterform.
It took a little longer to figure out which type of beak to use on the 'Z' as I also wanted to make this a letter of emphasis, as I want to display it in the alphabet as triple of them, playing on the humorous element of sarcasm, as if the reader was falling asleep as they read something, possibly a pack of lies.
Crit Feedback
In the crit somebody expressed their interest in the use of punctuation in affecting the tone of voice of a phrase said when someone is being sarcastic, and explained how I should look further into the fact that only certain letters ever have any kind of punctuation used on them, for example my use of the umlaut over the 'F'. However exploring using different punctuation with other letters that never usually do, I find will distract from the fact I'm trying to emphasise the 'F' and 'U' which is for obvious reasons.
Another suggestion was that I could play around with cutting up the letters and bending them, I tried this with cutting the upper half away and slanting it, however I feel like this may be overkill if my font is slanted, serifs are, as well as the top half of the letterforms. It further creates natural disconnected sections as seen on the 'S' which I feel distracts from the formal element, as I aim to maintain some level of tradition with the original typeface which is used for luxury brands; I feel this adds to the irony of my more subtle changes.
I tried it out roughly connecting the lines so the letterform appeared bent rather then cut and moved, however I feel it doesn't really add much in the way of effect considering the alphabet will already be in reverse italics, and again I want to avoid too much distortion.
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