Typesetting & Crit

Liam instructed me to use a typeface like Helvetica in keeping with the minimal Bauhaus era. I wanted to experiment however to find a font that reflects Brutalism and the Swiss style but with something with a harder edge moving away from what's expected.

I found Kroftsmann by 'abdul makes fonts' which I feel reflects this perfectly, I like how they're all upper case as it accentuates the idea of the scale of the buildings.

Crit
After the crit just now however I feel it's best to revert back to using Helvetica as people found the Kroftmann font "a bit mad" and in terms of legibility Helvetica is a far safer option, it's also more in keeping with the context as the text focuses on the history of Brutalism, not a newer alternative.

In the crit my attention was also brought to the issue of paper stock, especially in terms of chosing a suitable one that reduces the risk of fibres tearing off when the template is folded as this would ruin the full bleed effect as well as decrease legibility if the text is situated the way it is running over two sides. A useful tip was that there's some kind of film in the print room I can use to wrap around my templates before they're folded to reduce the risk of the fibres coming away and sounds like it would give them a more robust and glossier structure. I want to look into printing them on card but not a stock that is so thick it makes it awkward to fold. At the same time if they're too thin they won't hold their structure or justify the price tag £10-20.

As for the box/ sleeve they liked the idea but thought instead of using sand to mimic the texture of concrete, I could experiment with actual concrete, once again this would be possible within the budget boundaries and would serve as memorabilia, something robust to keep the more fragile templates in. I need to look into where I could get this from and how I could manipulate it into a thin square/rectangular structure. We then discussed how I could then emboss/ engrave onto the box, mimicking housing block building names but giving it a more refined edge as the buildings Liam has focused on have more refined details than council houses.



This is embossed concrete which is a lot more fitting than my original concept of having it embossed in gold as this goes against Brutalist architectural notions, this more plain brutal outline approach is very fitting.