Typography Trends

Trends and fads come and go.  Same can be said about typography.  One trend that was popular in the late 1990's was none other than the grunge era.  So what did this have to do with typography?  Typography worked around trends.  Type design became messy and lawless. In this generation, type was essential to the design of zines, concert posters, and commercial advertising, for example the infamous Fight Club poster and Playstation print ads. Designs in this era was new, it was fresh, it was expressive, it had not been seen before and thats what makes it special.  "Expression at the time was a backlash, a revolt against the consuming hyper-cleanliness of current design," (Palladino, 2013).  However due to the excessive use of grunge typography, it started to become less appealing, thus concluding that once again, trends come and go.  Once grunge typography was no longer popular, this sparked the interest in clean, simple, and classic designs in the early 2000's.  

NOTABLE PERSON: David Carson who is known as the "godfather of grunge".  This American designer is known for his use of experimental typography in the rock and roll magazine, Ray Gun.  His work has led to the widespread art movement of the grunge typography era.  

Image: http://www.davidcarsondesign.com/img/mini/nationaltheatre.jpg
http://dcd.rawquality.com/img/mini/ra4.jpg

New programs and technology were introduced in the midst of the 1990s, therefore enforcing new ideas.  The ability to design and alter typefaces was completely changed. Fonts were either being completely created from scratch or based off a preexisting font. Designing by hand was no longer the only option for creating. 

In many of the advertisements in the 90’s either a lot of white space was used or solid vibrant colours were placed as backgrounds.  Print advertisements in particular, I found in my research, were very text heavy, as seen in the images below. The advertisements in this era challenged visual norms, contrasting to what we see today.  These advertisements were fairly simple and image driven - using bright photographs or images along with a large headline to capture viewers’ attention.  Only until the 2000s, advertisements started to experiment with digital manipulation. 

Image: https://assets.blog.hemmings.com/wp-content/uploads//2011/02/Volvoracingad_700.jpg
http://designcrowd.s3.amazonaws.com/common/blogs/100YearsOfPrintAds/100YearsPrintAds_41.jpg
http://file.vintageadbrowser.com/pkkwgf8jf9zmau.jpg

Looking at the typefaces used in these movie posters include the use of custom font faces created strictly for the promotion of the film.  Thus, began the use of custom font faces. With Disney’s blockbuster animations, their movies are marketed with the intention of using a custom font.  “Disney movies have customized fonts for their blockbuster features,” (Ali, 2014).  The Disney logo itself is even made up of its own font, which is a casual script, which is similar to handwriting type. Thus contributing to the wave of using custom font faces, drifting away from traditional type design to more experimental and creative designs and layouts.  

Image: http://img.cinemablend.com/cb/d/1/1/c/d/f/d11cdfb3ce481917
c0d0d4a8e257226638b52f9768ab0115a42e1e8145baf527.jpg
 http://www.impawards.com/2001/posters/shrek_ver2.jpg
 http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/pixar/images/c/ca/Bugs_life_ver5_xlg.j
pg/revision/latest?cb=20110515135005
http://www.tribute.ca/harrypotter/images/HP1/harry_potter_and_the
_sorcerers_stone_poster5.jpg