Thursday, April 7, 2011

Simple tricks to avoid a typography fail

I saw this product in the store over the weekend. The packaging had me asking "what are 'bum pits' and why would I want to buy them?"  This is a great example of a typography fail.

It is easy in the design process to get caught up in the "shape" of the word and forget that the word actually has meaning. That meaning can be seriously distorted during the design process.

I understand that the company has merged the words "bump" and "it" for the product name. Obviously that was a non-negotiable for the designer. The designer picked a very clever arc layout that mirrored the shape of the product. Unfortunately placing the product name in an arc visually breaks it at the center, right where "bum" meets "pit"

There are lots of ways to provide a visual break in the proper place. Adding a capital "I" would be one option: "BumpIt." This solution is helpful when spelling out a web address in text to make it more readable: for example "WeAreCentralPA.com" instead of "wearcentralpa.com" which could be read as "wear central pa." 

Here are a few more ideas for breaking up run-on words:

1. Vary the font style
     Bumpit 
     Bumpit

2. Vary the color
     Bumpit
     Bumpit

3. Vary the size
   Bumpit
    Bumpit 

Notice how the top example in each set emphasizes the word "bump" to make it seem more important than "it." Of course, a designer can execute these techniques with a lot more finesse than I've done here. What other ways have you seen to address this typography fail?

5 comments:

  1. when you go from flat to fabulous so quickly you have no time to think about the font...lol

    ReplyDelete
  2. Do you think they have a product that will lift my bum like that? lol...sorry I couldn't resist.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ha ha...my brain went were Jenn's did...bum pit.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thats too funny. I need a bum pit!
    You know you want this-Shabby Apple Giveaway http://t.co/1uzxnqd

    ReplyDelete

Ooh,a comment! How delightful.

recomendations

share icons