James, I like it. That in-your-face trapping will be a great conversation-starter, and alludes nicely to the fact that type design is a craft. Minor: you might make the top-left trap a little bit smaller since the original angle is larger than the other three.

The only thing that jumps at me is that the “a” has a nice wonkiness, but the “t” and especially the “c” are a bit too tame in comparison.

One other thing: “australian type club” isn’t properly centered under “atc”.

> Evert Bloemsma invented that.

Evert was a singularly inventive designer*, but I don’t think we can give him credit for inventing trapping, even in the special case I suspect you mean: showing off trapping.

* Legato is the most significant font in centuries.

hhp

The cream color looks faded compared to the orange and black. I would just use white and be done with it. Or you could try using a gray instead of black. Not sure.

I’d also consider making the box a bit bigger on the left. It almost looks like a mistake.

I’d stick with this typeface. A little less of a time stamp on it.

Hello James,

I really like the colours.

Hrant said the “t” and especially the “c” are a bit too tame in comparison.
I second that.

The whole thing is not centered within the square, but also not decidedly right-aligned. I’d either center it, or make the square bigger, to the left.

The t with ink traps – is that the Crux australis? ;-) Like it.

A minor thing: the ‘ra’ combination in Australian looks unfortunate and could be fixed in a logo.

The TGA logo (Typographic Society of Austria) comes to my mind: it has also three lowercase letters. They comment on it as follows:

t — Thesis (state of the art in the founding year of tga)
g — Garamond (historic, timeless)
a — Herbert Bayer (Austria’s only noteworthy contribution to the history of type design)
The metal type impression is anachronistic detail and reminiscence.

Quite interesting, no?

Hrant —- I suppose I should call them “white spots”. They’re ink traps yes, and Evert can no more be credited with having invented such things than anyone else. But he was inventive in the way he deployed them on things like lower t’s and other kinds of cruciform joints by using exaggerated or high-concept traps to replicate the functions of serifs but in reverse, functioning as whitespots.

I’ll send you a sample of the kind of thing I’ve been working on for Linda Cunningham. Itemulates the gaps in the bowls of Vincent Connare’s Magpie with exaggerated taper on bowl joints.

Legzto, yes, I think you are accurate in characterizing it as Legato is the single-most significant font in centuries.

j a m e s

Florian—-the ra is ruff and I need to tidy that area up.

The t with ink traps – is that the Crux australis? ;-) Like it.

I actually call that a “cruciform” joint. If you examine the 100 x 100 bitmap at 3x zoom —- amazing how those things translate to aliased pixels at tiny size.

The tga logo I hadn’t seen before. Thanks for that. Um, the forms I built for this were Thesis-influenced, yes. De Goot is kind-of unavoidable, so influential on so many of us.

Garamond, yes, there is an element Garamond-like bending in the hood of the a and the cursiveness in the t and c.

Bayer I’m not greatly influenced by, altho I do love what I was able to do to Bayer Universal / Bauhaus and get away with it : ^ ) Benguiat is probably more influential on the sentinel design canon. I’ve used the principle of the quarter round in a few faces now. The original was Midnight Kernboy. The thesis / signature version is known as the Angel, and Amity is the commercial version, a “soft” angel.

There are cross-cultural design connections everywhere and I gues a lot of those things are put there specially for us to find.

I feel strongly that there should be more a bit more whitespace (er, burntorangespace?) on the left and top - but otherwise, I think it’s super! I disagree about the cream looking weak; I’d stick with it.

—-
eeblet.com

just a thought: what if you set ’atc’ in the box, but the full tag line beneath the box?

I like it. Although I would consider widening the margin between the wordmark and the left and top border. I like your idea of positioning it in the bottom right corner though. As for the colours: I think you’d either want to make the cream colour a bit darker, or the black a bit lighter, or maybe add a speck of brown to it. I’d also take a look at the r<>a in Australian and at the c<>l<>u in club. Nevertheless, I think you did an awesome job!

—
LGD • U&Me

If the t in “australian” is going to have the traps, should other letters, too (e.g. the y in “type”)? For consistency you might want to have either
- traps only in the big letters (that is, the big t)
- traps only in the big letters and the initials (that is, the t in type but not in australian)
- traps everywhere they make sense (any stroke intersection? any acute stroke intersection? not sure what the “rule” would be)

Also I’m not happy with the spacing and letterfit of the tagline at large sizes. It doesn’t look right, isn’t biting the way it seems it ought to.

j a m e s

Yes folks the kerning of the tagline is very ruff :^) Hee, moo, etcetera. I neglected to explain too that the whole typeface I’m using for this is quite ruff ’n ready. It’s a quickie bold made using a fotnlab’s bold filter. I only put traps on the t to begin with. The type needs refinement.

Yes, the proportional ratio of the mark to the left margin is a problem. Its bite has been deemed uncertain.

Darrel—-I’ve experimented with the tagline benath the box and felt it reduced the simplicity. The advantage of doing that way, the tagline ends up larger and the logo will reproduce even smaller. Another thing I experimented with was a tagline going the whole width of the box but still inside it, and letterspaced. Letterspacing the tagline I thought could be a way of evoking the vast opens spaces and distances between population centers characteristic of Oz. Unfortunately the letterspaced versions look like crap at small sizes and I don’t even want to post them.

Another reference for the cruciform t—-the Southern Cross constellation. That’s handy.

j a m e s

The cream white. Oh that.

The anuerysm I had last year left me permanently sight-impaired. I still have a very light blothcy moire pattern overlaid in my feild of vision, and this means looking at high contrast images is not so easy. My eyes and my brain get tired having to compensate for the distortion. One way of alleviating the malady is to work on cream and light gray paper. My paper color wound up being the white here. I think it’s a good choice because it helps suggest yellow without actually using yellow.

j a m e s

James, this is excellent. The type is beautiful. I like the colors, even the bit of cream, it makes a difference.

nice one.

is this actually happening or are you just playing?

very exciting if it’s a go ahead.

—————
Paul Ducco
Graphic Design Melbourne

Nice James.

The stroke thickness of the “a” could maybe be adjusted to to either appear deliberately bolder than the “tc” or made slightly lighter to counter the optical illusion that the light coloured shape is thicker than the black ones appear to be the same weight.

I like the slightly off-white off white colour & I like the rhythm & sort of progression the tails of the “atc”. I could maybe be played with a bit?

I agree with others that there could be more space at top and left. (But just a smidgen)

-=®=-

Will there be an alternative?

Graham—-I’m flexible about it, now and in the future. If you have ideas for this now is the time to put them forward. I’m trying to finalize this as an initial logo design, but of course other people may have ideas in future years which will be up for consideration.

I think we may end up using numerous different ATC logos for different purposes, and the design of each can be an integral part of club-goings-on. For example, if we decide to devote one year to calligraphic lettering then we’ll need a caligraphic version of the ATC logo for that year. Another year it might be a celebration of the renaissance Italian roots of book roman type, and whoever is most enthusiatic can design an exaggerated Jenson-esque ATC logo for that year. And so on.

Paul—-yes ATC is full steam ahead as of now. We’re not just playing. You have to give it time to gain momentum and be patient while we organize and acquire the resources needed to incorporate. Once it’s incorporated we will have access to serious funding and the fun can really begin.

Russell—-yep, the a does appear optically larger than the dark type. See latest version, in which the big white a has lost some height to compensate.

. . .I could maybe be played with a bit?

You’re welcome to play with it and make new iterations. Start with the newest large bitmap below. You want vector files? Erm, I can let you have it as EPS, I suppose.

===================================================

The body text in this sample uses a dark bown ink. The new logo comps have the same dark brown color for the t - c.

I’m too busy to do any more to this until Friday / the weekend. Meanwhile please feel free to leave further crits and suggestions.

j a m e s

Hey James, definitely the all in one design. I think the type could use a little more air around it though, right now it wants to jump out of that box. Any thoughts on one colour application? Straight reverse?

The brown is much better, but I wouldn’t put the formal name outside the box. It starts to fall apart...and I wouldn’t align the box with the formal name either.

how about including a kangaroo to make it really australian?

*joke*

—————
Paul Ducco
Graphic Design Melbourne

@ Arbo: You’re welcome to play with it and make new iterations. Start with the newest large bitmap below. You want vector files? Erm, I can let you have it as EPS, I suppose.

oops
Typo-city, James :o) I meant to type “it”

-=®=-

@ Paul: Yeah let’s stick the rat and chook in there!!

I would put the tagline under the block and tighten the “atc”. The idea of including traps is clever, but I don’t think it aesthetically works. It looks like a mistake to those who are not type-oriented and even then, it is only the “t” that has that treatment. I would keep it all clean. If not, then make the box more organic to fit the “t”.

Tom

(much laughter) I was hoping some Aussies would make a few joke suggestions like that :^) Thanks guys.

Three motifs we can rule out categorically: coat of arms, kangaroos, outline of Australian sland slab. It’s interesting how the kangaroo works for Quantas. “It helps that” the Quantas ’roo is stylized and usually seen on the tail fin of jumbos.

The square logo —- looks like we’re going for the self-contained one.

Milton—I’m still experimenting with the spacing. “atc” and the tagline in first version looked a bit loose. Now I’ve gone too tight. For a color application I think dark type on an orange square will work fine. We can try a straight inverse treatment with light type on orange too, to see how that looks.

@Tiffany: ...and I wouldn’t align the box with the formal name either.

Can you expand on what you’re getting at there for me? Thanks.

====================================================
The font I’m making for this will very likely be posted in the sans serif critique forum, and when it’s finished I’m thinking of releasing it as a free font to help promote ATC and solicit users of the font for cash donations to help fund ATC.

j a m e s

If you are not going with the roo, emu, or koala; you must include eucalyptus leaves, wattle and a goanna.

Sorry James, I was actually meaning one colour black applications - whether you go with a straight white out of a black square rather than going with a tint.

I think Qantas gets away with the roo because they’ve been saying it so loudly and consistently for so long.

At least we’ve got Vegemite brown in there.

cracker dipped in vegemite anyone?

—————
Paul Ducco
Graphic Design Melbourne

Sorry James, I was actually meaning one colour black applications - whether you go with a straight white out of a black square rather than going with a tint.

Right. Got it. Thanks :^)

Yes Vegemite brown, that’s a good reference for that color. It’s one of out national icons.

Paul—your vegemite has turned black ;^)

j a m e s

@Tom: I would put the tagline under the block and tighten the “atc”. The idea of including traps is clever, but I don’t think it aesthetically works. It looks like a mistake to those who are not type-oriented and even then, it is only the “t” that has that treatment. I would keep it all clean. If not, then make the box more organic to fit the “t”.

I tested this on a dozen people at work today who aren’t type-oriented, and none of them saw the traps as a mistake. Half of them didn’t even notice the traps are there.

I think consistency in design is vastly overrated, or at least overvalued by designers. Typographic design and typeface design are unlike buildings and automobiles in the sense that a typeface is a team of individual players that combine the strengths and weaknesses of each character. Logo design tends to overlook or neglect this vital aspect of typeface design. I’d like to keep some inconsistency in this logo as a reference to the philosophical side of type design.

Why does every element have to have the same treatment (why do we all have to think this way)? Integration of form and finish is one thing. Humanism is something else.

There are practical reasons for not putting the same style of traps on the a and c. They won’t go on the c because there’s nowhere to put them on the c without having it look unnatural. I could suggest or emulate them with kinks on the inner profile, but somehow anticipate that will look contrived. In the second iteration the traps on the a were exaggerated, but they can be even more exaggerated and still look natural so I’ll try that.

My rationale for why the t can have such pronounced traps has to do with its structure. Of the three letters present, only the t has a four way cruciform joint. Each letter is individual and has its own requirements.

j a m e s

One thing about this logo I’m not satisfied with—it’s boring and isn’t memorable. I’m glad people here like it, but it has to communicate to people outside the typosphere, so I’m thinking of scrapping this design and doing something with an animal or a tree or some other natural motif.

Feel free to suggest motifs that might work. I want something suitable for a typographic treatment.

j a m e s

why is it trying to communicate with no typosherians?

it is bland ... agreed. and that was my initial reaction ... but it has an almost no pomp timeless “government body” feel to it. Which is how I imagine the logo will get most of it’s placement ... i.e, as a sponsor or supporter of an event, publication etc.

I’d be happy to throw a couple of ideas up - that was probably the wrong phrasing to use ... as was typing what I thought and actually leaving the original. Yes ... it’s Friday!

HOORAY!

—————
Paul Ducco
Graphic Design Melbourne

There’s a difference between bland and subtle, with the latter being “subvisible”, until one learns to see it. And subtlety is a cornerstone of type design. James just has to have the right amount of it.

hhp

Hey James, greatly looking forward to being involved with the ATC once it is up and running mate. Let me know if I can be of any help.

http://davethedesigner.net

great work dave

—————
Paul Ducco
Graphic Design Melbourne

Hello James,

I send you one proposal for ATC logo.

Best Regards,
Lasko

A triumph for Dutch type design.

That’s great and all, and I love the crazy inkwells, but if you are working to communicate the AUSTRALIAN type club, then any Dutch-ness would seem to have little relevance. Just sayin’.

I can’t say I’ve seen too many different type club logos. Society for Typographic Arts in Chicago uses a simply monogram in a box. I think the type changes with application, which makes it more intereting. The Type Directors Club seal has always said “typography” to me because of the unique relationship of the drawn letters. Simply typing out “TDC” or “ATC” or any monogram doesn’t really say much about the organization beyond “we’ve got a keyboard and we’re not afraid to use it”.

Trapping is not Dutch!

hhp

Perhaps you could incorporate boomerangs, or even a kangaroo?

—K

Yes, a kangaroo, stepping on, and crushing, a kiwi.

hhp

hah.
Kiwiland is great. No knocking it!

—————
Paul Ducco
Graphic Design Melbourne

Ha! That’s really quite funny Hrant! What about a compromise, like boomerang-shaped inktraps?

—K

“You call that a slab-serif?...”

hahahaha.

WIN!

—————
Paul Ducco
Graphic Design Melbourne

I actually agree with jonsel about the TDC being a mark that echos the sentiments of the club. Perhaps something more obviously crafted?

http://davethedesigner.net

this one?

—————
Paul Ducco
Graphic Design Melbourne

how about including a kangaroo to make it really australian?

Kangaroos are too obvious Paul - go with a Koala - way more 2009!

Koalas cannot squash kiwis.

hhp

If they fell they might be able to... Thought that might be more of squishing than squashing.

«El futuro es una línea tan fina que apenas nos damos cuenta de pintarla nosotros mismos». (La Luz Oscura, por Javier Guerrero)

and don’t confuse koalas with drop bears. they’re totally different!

—————
Paul Ducco
Logo Design Melbourne

1: Koalas are more competitive than you think. I’d back them in a cage match with a kiwi, even if it did have a better reach. A Wombat would wipe the floor with either.

2: Not fair to include Drop Bears Paul, carnivores are off limits.

Sorry for the delay folks, I am traveling this week. Thanks for all the great humour and suggestions. I’m feeling really blue at the moment, for other reasons, so having a bit of humour about the place makes a big difference for me.

“Now *that’s* a slab serif sonny!”

I think if we’re going to use boomerangs or koalas they will have to be subtle.

trapping is not dutch
dutch did not invent traps
traps found in germany
traps known to the viennese
traps, traps, traps

j a m e s

Lasko, thanks for your proposed ATC logo.
It’s stunning. A stunning failure of form
and relevance. I can only give it one star,
and a good idea where you can put it:

If it’s meant to be a joke, it’s very lame
and an epic fail in the comedy stakes.

j a m e s

Some kind of mark with the letters ATC beneath it or to one side, like the NAB logo. Russell McGorman suggested petroglyphs, and that got me looking at pictures of petroglyphs and thinking in a petroglyph-like way. These are all from a Letraset dings font called Mo Funky Fresh Symbols:

The bottom two are just for laffs. Something like one of the first four but original artwork. Only using pre-made dings here to illustrate the concept.

j a m e s

James, I think that illustration style would work very well, but the symbol you choose should be something about type - probably a letter, maybe the “t”. Maybe make the “t” larger and “umbrella” the “a” and “c”?

hhp

That has possibilities. Thanks Hrant. I made two more dummies
just to explore a few other directions. What about the tiki / tribal
treatment but a letter or letters rather than an abstract face?

I have to be very careful to not use any kind of genuine aboriginal artwork or imagery as the Arboriginal people are very sensitive about that stuff.

Now, if we can conjure up a petroglyph in typo form.

j a m e s

This could work out okay.

j a m e s

My immediate reaction is that you might end up with an image that is too ‘cod’-Aboriginal.
Actually the vegemite/toast joke concept made me wonder, if you just had the counter of an A (with the trap) as the vegemite, and had it with no other type within the box it would make a striking, while subtle, mark – a typographic mark with no immediate reference to type, gah! probably overthinking it.

Tim

Don’t use the cultural symbols...its a complete minefield in my experience. May look cool but its just not right.

Hey James,

I think the Indigenous angle would be a mistake, especially given that the club in question is based on a history of written language linked with European/Western culture, the very cultures that committed many atrocities against said Indigenous peoples.

Agree with Hrant, the T could be used to umbrella the other characters, but it might be starting to get laboured at that point.

Hope you feel “up” soon mate. Remember though, Aussies don’t get the Blues, we get the Sh1ts.

James, the Tiki should make the Kiwis happy; finally the Roos realise that Australia is just the West Island ;-)

One thing we are definitely not doing is cultural symbols. The recently posted pics are passing thoughts, attempts, brainstorming, thinking out loud.

So erase from your mind the primative drawing style of that wiggly guy and replace it with, say, a Dada drawing style, or a polished typographic outline style in the European typo-tradition.

j a m e s

@jonsel: That’s great and all, and I love the crazy inkwells, but if you are working to communicate the AUSTRALIAN type club, then any Dutch-ness would seem to have little relevance. Just sayin’.

As Hrant said, trapping is not Dutch.

Initially I said: Those traps are only about 12 units wide on 1000 unit per em characters. But they keep working even at tiny reproduction sizes. I love that effect because it proves how powerful the design principles Evert was working on really are. A triumph for Dutch type design.

It was misleading of me to say “A triumph for Dutch type design” at the end. Sorry, my goof. To put it another way, I love the effect I’m getting with the Bloemsma-inspired traps on the t. Evert’s methodology inspires me to design type in my own way, using my own instincts, and I hope this can be a triumph for Australian type design.

j a m e s

Nobody thinks the a-t pair looks too tightly kerned?

2 x 2 = 5

Yes. I think they are too tight compared to t-c.

Stand by. I’m working on this tomorrow with the aim of finishing, so I may have a semi-final version to post :^)

j a m e s

As Hrant said, trapping is not Dutch.

Yes, yes, I know. I latched on to your “triumph of Dutch type design” comment, which struck me as an odd thing to be basing an Australian organization’s logo on. Seems we both erred there.

To the rest of you boomerangs, I don’t believe I suggested kangaroos, wallabies or any other hopping marsupial, did I?

Maybe the inkwell concept can work, but perhaps you’ve got to blow it out like Amplitude. I can see the point of having a typographic logo that typographers will understand but may be somewhat esoteric to others, but it has to still have some visual distinction to it.

Good luck.