03 Typography

03 | Typography

ISTD - International Society of Typographic Designers

2023 Student Brief

Brief summary

Subsequent to the ISTD brief 'Mapping the World', this project involves creating a typographically focused product packaging. My concept was focusses on wind mapping and its direct link to agricultural crop production; thus, the packaging should provide informative information on wind mapping and how it relays to the brand's making of its ingredients. Comprehensive research should inform the design solution and define a context and target audience. The packaging must include a minimum of 500 words of original copy, which is clearly expressed and formatted to enhance the packaging. The final design concept and packaging need to attract the viewer's attention, provide information about the product, and enrich the overall experience

through typography.

Project deliverables

01. Research

02. Conceptual and design development

03. Strategy and specifications

04. Final outcome

05. Supporting imagery

Design strategy

A luxury brand named Fujin is my reply to the ISTD brief, ‘Mapping of the World’. The brand is inspired by how wind directly impacts agricultural crop production, which in turn affects product ingredients used for producing superior-quality Japanese soy sauce. A precise focus is placed on the importance of wind maps which assist farmers to cultivate the best possible quality crops and yields for the production of soy sauce.

The creation of the soy sauce brand highlights the utilisation of wind maps as an inspiration of Fujin’s visual narrative. The brand’s ingredients are dependent on optimal agricultural farming conditions that aren’t compromised by wind. The aim of the brand is to generate a deeper appreciation for wind mapping that aids in producing products that many consume. For the target market, sushi lovers between the ages of 18 to 30 who consume the most amount of the soy sauce, Fujin aims to provide insight to this youthful audience on the importance of wind mapping when product this product that they consume.

The inspiration of creating a Japanese soy sauce brand stems from an interest I’ve had in the language and history of Japan from a young age, having a first name that’s origin is Japanese. I originally wanted to focus on the history of mapping the Japanese island of Hokkaido and its special qualities of having both ice and sea lands that meet one another. However, on reflection, it seemed that the importance of wind mapping and how it directly impacts agricultural crop production was a more contemporary and pragmatic option.

The brand offers two flavours, a dark and clear soy sauce and produces three different size: small, medium and a large soy sauce. The packaging of each product is designed to be interactive, having the customers open the package and greeted with the brand’s narrative on a scroll that pays tribute to wind maps. Fujin equally informs and engages the element of wind mapping. Communicating the importance of wind through using a wind map’s informative nature is the branding of Fujin within the product and its packaging. The text displayed on the label designs of each bottle as well as the scroll text explain the importance of wind mapping verbally whilst the imagery created for Fujin’s branding displays wind mapping’s importance visually.

Fujin’s branding is mainly inspired by wind simulation maps that documents real-time wind speed, using its colour indicators as the brand’s colour scheme. A handcrafted typeface was developed to narrate the brand’s Japanese culture using bold and organic glyphs contrasted with a contemporary sans-serif to the give the brand a bold and dynamic personality.

The three different sizes each consist of their own imagery and colour hierarchy to create unique differentiation amongst them. The scroll and its text arrangement reinforces the Japanese way of writing. A professional finish is realised by embossing the branding with a silver foil whilst the brand’s imagery reflects wind simulation, echoing a luxury product.

Research and development

Wind map simulation influences

Research was conducted on wind mapping simulation. This research informed the project's conceptual development, design processes, visual influences, and final outcomes.

Typographic exploration

Experimentation with a handcrafted typeface was developed to narrate the brand’s Japanese culture using bold and organic glyphs contrasted with a contemporary sans-serif to the give the brand a bold and dynamic personality.

Logo development

Fujin's logotype was developed from a handcrafted typeface crafted using glyphs. Various glyph placement, stacking and font pairings were explored before reaching the final logotype.

Packaging development

To get the final packaging, various layouts were considered to ensure that the label information is presented clearly and legibly.

Fujin

Fujin's branding was inspired by wind mapping and wind map simulations. The logo makes uses of a handcrafted type paired with a humanist sans-serif. The imagery of Fujin emulates the movement of wind created into three variants to distinguish between the soy sauces the brand offers.

Colours of the wind

Inspired by wind simulation map's use of colour, Fujin's colour scheme is made up of hues and values of green, blue, yellow and orange to create a sensation of wind-like movement and vibrance. Within each of Fujin’s product sizes, small, medium and large, a specific hierarchy of the colour scheme is used in order to create a differentiation between the three sizes.

Wind-like type

Fujin consists of two types of typefaces. A handcrafted typeface and Skia (Regular, Condensed and Bold). The handcrafted typeface was created using glyphs from Japanese typeface, Yuji Syuku. Skia’s typeface choice was inspired by its humanist sans serif style.

I was inspired by the thick weight of the Yuji glyphs. I found them to be extremely visually interesting and what to incorporate the brush texture and weight of the glyphs within my handcrafted typeface.

Skia is a humanist sans serif typeface that paired well with the handcrafted type. Skia's fonts were used for bodycopy in Regular, Condensed for nutritional facts on the brand’s labels and Bold for label text as well as nutritional facts on the back of the labels.

Grid system