First of all, I want to say that those three lectures about typography style inspired me a

lot. It’s so interesting to see the differences and similarities between those typography
styles in different countries.

I choose two posters from

Italian typography designs.
The first one T14 is a poster
designed for the 14th Milan
Triennale exhibition. The
second poster is designed for
an antique trade fair. In this
poster, the letters are cut in to
different pieces in order to
make them look like ancient
ruins. The breaking typeface
is the main element in this
poster and it’s really
outstanding. I think both of
these two posters are looked
very graphic. I also browsed
the whole website and I found out that the Italian typography
design is influenced by Swiss Style and Bauhaus a lot. As we know, black color is always
considered to be the first typographic color and red color is the second typographic color.
Both of these two colors are typically Swiss design style colors. I saw many design works
and posters on the website utilize black and red, like the poster Stock which was
designed by Pino Tovaglia in 1971 and Necchi which was designed by Dante Bighi in
1965. Many of the posters are using black and red so well. I think Italian typographic
design is mainly focusing on exploring the beauty of typeface itself. Many posters are
sousing on the layout of types and the combination of types. Like the poster T14, the
designer used black color on the letter T and he used the design principle positive space
and negative space on T14. The 14 is white color which looks like the comparison of T.
He also made the texts printed in red, which can both differentiate from the mark T 14
and enhance the whole layout. In my opinion, this poster really has the sense of depth.
Those three different colored types make people have a feeling of three layers. Then the
whole poster stands out. This way of using colors is really popular in many Italian
typographic designs. I think Italian designers really care about the effect of typeface. They
like to make variations on typography itself and they like to do many experiments on
arranging type in different ways. The layout of typography becomes the main visual
element in one poster.

When I went to the Canadian website,

I found there many similarities and
differences with Italian typographic design
style. I choose a book cover and a poster
from the website as my examples. Based
on these two designs, I realize that it
seems like Canadian designers prefer to
combine typography and graphic pictures
or graphic patterns in their designs. As we
can see, both of the book cover and the
poster combines their patterns with
typography very well. Firstly, the poster is
designed for the Youth Pavilion at Expo
67. The designer used a modern-feeling
and abstract line expression of the two
figures in this poster. The bodies of these
two figures are drawn by offset strokes
and the lines are connect to one another
in the centre, which makes the poster
looks bold and outstanding. I think the
typography design in Canada also
influenced a little bit by Swiss style
because the layout and the arrangement
of the typography is kind of like Swiss
Style. In Canada, I notice that designers
prefer use typography as the information part, which is different from the Italian
typographic design style. Canadian designers always use typography to demonstrate the
objective information like the name or the main idea of the poster and the time or address
related to the poster. Although the typography only plays the infographic role in the
poster, it works really well with the pictures and it also designed in good graphic style.
Moreover, the book cover is designed for an Annual report. In this design, the designer
also use abstract patterns as the main visual elements of the poster. The white circle
symbols represent the two years panning the report. I think both the poster and the cover
focusing on the comparison and boldness of the visual language. The bold images is the
main visual language and typography shows the information things.

For the typographic style in US,

I think there are also differences
exist. By looking at the designs in
US, I think the US typographic
design style is more experimental
than those two countries. Firstly, it
seems like US typographic style is
influenced by both the Swiss style
and Bauhaus style because many
of the designs using Swiss style
colors like black and red or the
Bauhaus colors like blue, yellow,
red and black. The layout of
typography is also graphic. Many
designs combines the American
culture and the Swiss design
culture. Those posters use a
large number of geometric
shapes, which look bold and
graphic. In the second
screenshot, the posters are
designed by Dietmar Winkler. He
turned the typography into
geometric shapes and the
typographic animation represents
the movement of waves which is
very vivid. Based on the two
examples I choose, I find out that
US designers prefer to use typography both as information part and visual language part.
They utilize graphic typography layout as information part and they transform the type or
they rearrange the type in order to make the types look like a geometric pattern. Then the
geometric pattern becomes the visual language of the design. The US design style is
more experimental to me.

Overall, I think all three countries typographic styles are influenced by Swiss Style. Their
typographic styles are all geometric and graphic. On the contrary, the Italian style uses
only typography as the main visual language. The Canadian style combines both the
typography and geometric patterns. The US style use typography both as information and
visual language. I think Italian designs looks more classic. The Canadian designs and the
US designs are more contemporary.

I took Basic graphic design class in my sophomore year

and I learned about Bauhaus style. I think my international
typographic style is also influenced by Bauhaus. I also
took typography class with Olga in my third year and she
influenced me a lot. For now, I really prefer to use
typography as my main visual language in my designs and
I enjoy do some experimental designs on type.