[Anna Pinkas]

<span style=”font-weight: 400;”>Find a website or poster you like and analyze its use of fonts: How many font-families can you recognize? How are they used to focus the attention of the viewer? How is size and color used within a single font-family? How would you describe the fonts used (i.e: playful? classic? modern? etc.). Be prepared to share your findings with the class.</span>

Reply to this post with a link to your website/image and your findings. Be prepared to share them with the class.

[Nicole Quiles]

https://www.brainpop.com/

I recognize Ariel and serif which are the only fonts I see on the website which is made for children and pre-teens from ages 5-13. The fonts are used to make it easier for the audience to read and understand with black and white. I would describe the font to be simplistic to again make it easier for the audience to read.

[Michael Leister]

https://www.bonappetit.com/

I see two font families: serif and sans-serif.

The serif is used primarily for the logo, a word-mark. The logo is like Std Roman, but it was likely customized for the magazine. Serif is also used in the footer as another word-mark logo but for Condé Nast, the media company that owns Bon Appétit.

It stands out because the other font used for emphasis are sans-serif, style variations of Futura PT (It probably just Futura for the print magazine itself since Futura PT was designed for computer screens). The articles use Future PT as the headers and subheads, but are written in their body portions with a serif font, Crimson Pro.

They use white color for the Bon Appétit logo because the navbar is black. They use white colors for the other buttons on the navbar—Futura PT  in all caps. Captions are in all caps, too. They’re black with yellow  or orange blocks. Headers are bold or semi-bold, and the Futura PT fonts are larger to stand out, but not in all caps. They’re just big in scale to stand out and contrast with the subhead, usually a slogan or phrase to catch the reader’s attention. They have a minimal simplicity to draw attention, but also to return attention to the large photos of food.  Italic-bold is also used on rare occasions. In articles, the bylines are in all caps but they use a thin font-weight.  Crimson Pro, a newer serif font, is utilized for the body texts in the articles.

Their font choices are classic, modern, and cultured (in the cosmopolitan sense). However, they’re also very judicious in their selection because they want to use web friendly fonts on most devices while capturing what was traditionally used for Bon Appétit magazine. The magazine has been around since 1956, and probably went through different iterations until it adopted its style today. The classic approach to using serif is a call-back to how  print media was the norm while also providing a Parisian elegance – culinary being an art. They want it to be formal and classy. At the same time, they use Futura, a modernist, geometric, sans-serif designed by Paul Renner. Their fonts aren’t cutting edge as defined by postmodern or Internet age standards, but the fonts are legible, clean, and austere. Futura doesn’t have the same forward-thinking connotation due to contemporary nostalgia as it did in the 1950s and earlier, but they use it in a way that is clever and playful. They’re very self-aware. They seem to imply that their brand a is credible food and lifestyle magazine—online nowadays with podcasts and shows too—but tailored for contemporary living for the high-class, cultured, and cosmopolitan lifestyle.

 

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