I experimented with hand writing and hand drawn elements, as my zine is aimed at children and I thought the more sketchy, loose writing might reflect the narrative better than a type face which is more professional, like Helvetica, which I used in the photocopier experiments.
I found that a crayon was the most suitable as it gave the writing some texture. I then scanned in these experiments as Tiff files and played around with them in InDesign, changing the colours and layering. I focused on using purple and orange again as it helped identify which elephant was the focus of each page.
I tried applying the hand-written title over images to create a front cover, but even when I used multiple layers to make the title stand out more, it didn’t feel like it fitted the content well enough.
I looked at several children’s book covers to get a feel for what might work with my zine. A lot of the examples had chosen a typeface which looked relaxed and playful, while still looking consistent and professional. I found a font from adobe fonts which had these qualities so I applied it to the front cover. I typed on a circular path so that the writing framed the elephant at the centre, which I think links the type and imagery much better than when the title was straight at the top of the page.
I played around with the height and width of the letters, and made the type into outlines so I could alter the positioning and size of each letter, until the title reflected the content of my zine.
Contextual References
These are a few of the examples I looked at. Most children’s books are bold and colourful, featuring the main characters and hand-drawn style titles. I think the typeface I have chosen is more suitable than my original hand drawn title as it is bolder and more consistent while still being informal.
