Typeface name: Didot
Designer: Firmin Didot
Year: 1784–1811
Quote: “I’ve never seen elegance go out of style”
Description: Modern typefaces, characterized by consistently horizontal stress, flat and unbracketed serifs, and a high contrast between thin and thick strokes, were the final step in typography’s two-hundred-year journey away from calligraphy. The designs of the Didot alphabets reflect the style of another designer during the same period — Giambattista Bodoni. Didot is a serif font and pairs well with Proxima Nova, Archer, Georgia, Helvetica, Brandon Grotesque, Verlag and Montserrat. Since the serif is hairline-thin, the font works best as a headline. Today, Didot seems to have found its home in lifestyle and fashion publications, television shows and posters. For example, Style Network used the typeface in part of its logo. CBS also created a version of the typeface to appear next to its eye logo. The font is a go-to in the larger headlines for magazines and posters, as well.
Design Process
My design process began with a series of explorations on my sketchbook. Because of Didot’s unique characteristics, I wanted to use the same style to arrange my poster. For these first sketches, I first drew vertical lines and grids to match the vertical stress and hairline strokes of the Didot typeface. Then I tried using the lines of the letters to align to these guides that I drew while varying in sizes. These were some of my inspirations:
After these sketches, I decided to try looking at the project from a different perspective. Therefore, I began looking back at the history and context that I researched to find inspirations for my design. Because the Didot typeface is most associated with magazine titles like Vogue, Elle, or Harper Bazaar, I looked into the design of these magazines to find associations.
Then I applied the same design layout of these magazines onto the design of the poster to create an association between the two. This is my first digital draft:
I referenced the color scheme of elegant and timeless magazines and decided to use largely exaggerated characters to imitate the character that is usually featured on the cover of the magazine.
Then I experimented with a different color combination, referring to more old fashioned feelings. I also experimented with a more neutral tone, with a lower contrast but a more elegant tone.
I then began refining the design by moving around the placement of some words and changing the hierarchy of colors to match what colors would be printed first.
After the first round of critique, I took the suggestion of putting all the characters (including the capital letters) in the middle as a whole character set and I thought that made a lot of sense. I also fixed minor issues such as awkward corners the overlapping created and the color of the smaller texts for better legibility. After I have refined my design, I further explored with more color schemes.
In the end, for my final design iteration, I chose my original neutral tone and brightened all the colors for overall contrast. I also edited the side texts so that the paragraphs seemed more organized and less jagged at the ends. I also moved around the “Firmin” to be larger after comments from the final crit because it was important information and further refined some spaces.
