Typeface Poster

Bodoni 72 got its name from its designer, Giambattista Bodoni. The modern typeface was created in the late 18th century, but there have been plenty of revivals since. It is known for its striking contrast between thick and thin strokes, which was made possible by the newly developed printing technology.

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This typeface holds a familiar distinction for me because it was the basis for the one used for headlines in The Washington Post, one of the more prominent newspapers of my hometown of Potomac, Maryland. The newspaper’s version of the font, affectionately called “Postoni”, is different than its source because of its slightly increased x-height, and a more similar weight among uppercase and lowercase letters.

DESIGN CHOICES

By design, a pilcrow resembles a backwards P, but thanks to the Latin alphabet’s tendency towards repetitive shapes, simple rotations of the character can also produce the lowercase initials of the typeface’s designer. I noticed the typeface’s unique design for the new paragraph symbol; a serif in the shape caused the character to appear even more like the letters of the designer’s initials. I chose to display these characters a contrasting manner in my poster, and I gave them a rotation for visual excitement.

I added a gentle color variation among the repeated pilcrows, as well as the repeated name of the font on the lower right-hand corner, so that the viewer’s eye is gently pointed towards the center of the image, where the text is colored unanimously.